Social-network sites give businesses ideas for new collaboration

If vendors have their way, a second wave of collaborative technologies -- including wikis, blogs, videos, and mashups, platforms and features borrowed from social-networking sites like MySpace -- soon will wash onto computers in the workplace.

Such interactive technologies are part of a larger trend known as Web 2.0 that has taken root in the consumer space. They have the potential to transform commerce, simplifying communications between employees, suppliers, and customers, speakers told business and information technology professionals at the Enterprise 2.0 conference at Boston's Westin Waterfront hotel last week.

"It is the high-school- and college-age children of executives who are spreading the word," said Andrew MacAfee , a Harvard Business School associate professor credited with coining the phrase Enterprise 2.0. "What people are cluing into now is that software is an interactive social tool and should be exploited to that effect."

Among the technology vendors demonstrating new collaboration products at the Boston conference were IBM Corp., Microsoft Corp., Cisco Systems Inc., and SAP AG.

The products ranged from software that lets employees form communities and create profiles, similar to those at networking sites like MySpace, to hardware such as Cisco's new TelePresence conferencing system that aims to "make video part of companies' DNA," said Martin De Beer , senior vice president at the technology company.

IBM unveiled "Web 2.0 Goes to Work," which includes "social software" developed at its Cambridge research lab. Lotus Connections enables blogging, tagging, and bookmarking, while Lotus Quickr lets employees work together within and outside of their organizations. And a new version of the IBM Websphere portal allows workers to rapidly assemble mashups (websites that combine content from more than one Web source) by combining data and other features from different websites for business purposes.

"We're moving this technology into a space where people can take advantage of it to create communities of interest among employees and suppliers," said Ambuj Goyal , an ex-Lotus general manager who now leads the IBM Software information management team.

But the Enterprise 2.0 trend has its skeptics.

Thomas Davenport , a professor of information technology at Babson College in Wellesley who debates the merits of social software with MacAfee on dueling blogs, said much of the talk about its benefits is overblown. "It's kind of software looking for a business application," he said.

"I have no problem with organizations experimenting with Web 2.0 technology," Davenport said. "But most of the benefits of these technologies are social rather than business-oriented. And even when businesses are using them, nobody's saying anything about what kind of ROI (return on investment) they've been able to get on them."

Vendors said the new technologies will help companies empower workers, pool expertise across departments and geographies, and attract young workers who grew up with blogs and social networks. But critics of social networking in business applications cited the dangers of relaxing control of in-house communities.

The Cartoon Network bomb scare in Boston last January is an example of what can happen when small teams aim "guerilla marketing" at one community without regard to the larger population, said Tim Scannell , president of Shoreline Research, a technology consulting firm in Quincy.

"You have to have some level of control and some framework in which to operate," Scannell said. "The potential is there to turn the key to the zoo over to the animals."

In a panel titled "Enterprise 2.0 in Action," however, companies cited competitive advantages they'd gained from new collaborative technologies. Team work spaces, Internet meetings, and audio conferencing helped connect research-and-development teams from around the world at Volvo, said Carole Boudinet , the company's manager of collaborative work solutions. Boudinet said Volvo created a worldwide network of "culture ambassadors" and "collaboration consultants" to accelerate the adoption of collaborative tools.

Sujatha Bodapati , founder of ProdexNet, a San Jose, Calif., company that designs customized software and other products, said wikis, message boards, and other "virtualization" technology has allowed her company to move its research operations to India.

"There's no other way to be a global company than to be a virtual organization," said Jeffrey Stamps , co founder of NetAge Inc., a Newton consulting firm specializing in collaborative technology.

Over the past decade, information technology has brought dramatic changes into the workplace, but much bigger changes lie ahead, predicted David Weinberger , a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School in Cambridge.

"We are so at the beginning of this," Weinberger said.

Robert Weisman can be reached at weisman@globe.com.