Research

Publication Date: 28 August 2009 ID Number: G00170380

How to Help Workers Pick the Right Social Software

Tools for Their Tasks
Jeffrey Mann

Choosing the right social software tools can be challenging due to overlapping functions,
complex work practices and ingrained habits. Users turn to the IT organization for
guidance. IT professionals overseeing social software should focus on which situations
these tools support rather than specific technical functions.

Key Findings
• Although the functions of tools may overlap, they are often best suited to support
different uses. For example, people can post ideas and get responses with blogs, wikis,
discussion forums or document repositories, but these tools are all most effective in
different situations.

• A traditional requirements-gathering approach that produces a list of needed functions

may still lead IT staff and users to prefer the wrong tool.

• New users, who have not sought out social software products themselves, will usually
need more guidance than the initial pioneers.

Recommendations
• Ask workers what they plan to use social software tools for rather than creating a list of
functional requirements.

• Ask users what works well today and what doesn't — ask about people and process
issues as well as technology issues.

• Consider the wider technology environment, including e-mail, phones and enterprise
content management, before recommending a social software tool.

• Explain the limitations of social software tools and what they require to work well.

© 2009 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution of this publication in any form
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WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Many social software deployments fail to attract widespread adoption because it is not
immediately clear which purposes they best serve. These mistakes can easily happen because
social software tools with overlapping functions present confusing choices. IT professionals can
best advise workers about which tools to use by focusing on the appropriate uses of social
software tools as distinct from their technical functions. IT professionals must also consider how
users work and what the workplace environment is like.

ANALYSIS

Most enterprises have progressed beyond the phase when early adopters ("pioneers") brought
social software tools into the enterprise without the need for much planning or guidance. Now
mainstream users ("settlers") want to use them to share opinions, interact with peers, build
personal networks and create business value (see "Pioneers and Settlers: Social Software
Maturity Changes IT Support Requirements").
More and more enterprises are adopting social software platforms that offer a variety of social
software and collaboration choices. However, mainstream users need more guidance as to which
tools to use when. Social software tools have overlapping functions — for example, blogs, wikis
and discussion forums all allow users to post ideas and get responses. These overlaps will lead
users to choose the wrong tool and will therefore prevent users from achieving their goals. This
research note describes how to differentiate the features commonly provided within social
software platforms to end users who might not be familiar with them.
Workers often ask the IT organization for help in choosing the right tool for the task they need to
accomplish. These questions can be hard to understand or even seem silly to experienced users,
but can really challenge people when they first encounter social software. Users who do not
understand the differences between the different tools on offer will resist the introduction of new
tools. They will often use the first tool they become familiar with in all situations, even when better
tools are available. When IT professionals advise users about social software tools, they should
pay attention to three issues:

• What the uses of social software tools are.

• What social software tools do well and don't do well.

• What constraints affect the IT organization itself.

Focus on the Uses of Social Software Tools

The success of social software deployments depends on the uses to which the tools lend
themselves more than their technical functions. The functions of tools may overlap, yet support
different uses. For example, blogs and wikis both offer post-and-response functions, but blogs
excel at one-to-many communications while wikis support multi-author collaboration. Thus, a
traditional requirements-gathering process that produces a list of needed functions may still lead
workers and IT professionals to choose the wrong tool. Table 1 summarizes the best uses of
common social software tools.

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Table 1. Social Software Tools and Their Uses
Tool Description Uses
Blogs Personal channel to expose ideas in a • Executive communications
series of posts and get comments • Project status
• Thought leadership
Microblogs Short, rapid posts with an individual's • Personal experience
status or reactions • Breaking news
• Creating awareness
Wikis Collective authoring on a single, living • Reaching consensus
document • Brainstorming
Document repositories Controlled access to downloadable files • Formal process
• Versioned deliverables
Discussion forums Hierarchically threaded posts organized • Topic exploration
by topics • Experience sharing
Social tagging Share/analyze links to useful sites, • Sharing resources
documents, objects • Discovering trends and expertise
Profiles Descriptions of interests, skills, projects, • Building personal links
experiences • Expertise location
Source: Gartner (August 2009)

Know What Social Software Tools Do Well and Don't Do Well

Many factors complicate the challenge of picking the right social software tool for the job. The
variety of different tools and products available can confuse people, an effect exacerbated by
increased adoption of social software platforms which include a variety of tools. Work itself has
become harder for the IT organization to model. Work gets done by people who collaborate with
others within their department, in formal or informal cross-organizational teams, on ad hoc
projects, and even with people from outside the enterprise. The work may be structured by a
business process or free-form. People generally expect that work will occur transparently, where
others within the enterprise and maybe beyond can see what was done, as well as how the work
unfolded. Different social software tools address different parts of this puzzle.
Blogs are an inherently individual and personal channel. They work well when the author needs
to express a vision or communicate about a project to a wide audience and solicit feedback from
the community of readers. For example, a CEO who leads a change of direction for the enterprise
could use a blog to explain what he thinks the new organization should look like and to comment
on examples of change. A project manager could use a blog to discuss progress and setbacks in
the project. Blogs need a strong purpose or an individual authorial voice to garner attention and
feedback. Blog posts should convey real insight. Routine messages and language written by
corporate publicity won't work.
Microblogs enable someone to update others about events in near-real-time. (Twitter is the best
known consumer application.) For example, if one member of a team attends a conference, he
can keep his colleagues back in the office informed about what is happening and what insights
are collected. Microblogs can easily descend into trivia ("lunch was terrible") unless the author
has a specific purpose and the discipline to stay focused.

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Wikis work well when participants do not have a defined process to follow or a strict document
structure to obey. For example, a manufacturer that wants to make its owner's manual more
useful for customers could use a wiki to allow customers to redesign the manual from scratch.
Consultants use wikis to collect best practices about a particular process which builds over time.
Wikis should allow widespread participation, but no one should be anonymous. The enterprise
should appoint someone with final editorial say over the content as long as that person
collaborates well and does not steer or dictate a solution.
Document repositories work well in controlled processes where only certain roles can
participate, people must produce a structured document type, managers must review and
approve at certain stages, and the work must be audited. For example, preparing project bids or
marketing proposals are good tasks for document repositories. They are less appropriate for
open-ended collaboration due to the sequential nature imposed by their check in/check out
structure.
Discussion forums allow people with common interests to share opinions and experiences and
to help each other with problems. Some discussion communities persist over time; most fade
over time because they depend on the enthusiasm of a few leaders, whose interests may move in
different directions. Keeping discussions on topic is a continual challenge, as they tend to drift
away from the initial topic. Discussion forums work best when there are specific questions to be
answered or issues to be addressed by a large group, as with technical support forums. In many
cases, wikis have largely replaced discussion forums due to their more flexible structure and
functionality.
Social tagging in the first instance helps people to organize and find content and objects that
they find useful for themselves. For example, they can tag websites, documents, calendar entries
and files pertaining to a particular area of interest or project. Del.icio.us is a well-known consumer
example of a social tagging service. By aggregating the tags across departments or the
enterprise, users can access the information sources used by colleagues. Enterprises can
analyze the tags to see which ones are used most often, over time, by the most people, and so
on, to discern patterns and insights.
Profiles provide information about people, their interests, skills, background and experiences.
They can help to find people within the organization or outside who can help with problems that
are out of the ordinary. (LinkedIn.com offers a well-known consumer example of profiles.) For
example, a worker who has never written a business case before could use profiles to spot
someone in the finance organization who has experience collaborating on business cases.
Profiles are limited based on people's willingness to participate and on the kinds of information
captured. Some social software platforms provide functions to automatically enrich user profiles
with more information by analyzing tags, documents created, websites consulted and other
sources of information.
The kind of guidance provided above will help users understand the goals behind different types
of social software and encourage them to use the best tool.

Recognize the IT Organization's Own Constraints

Pressures on the IT organization itself can influence the advice it gives users. While the reasons
behind these drivers often have some validity, these pressures can cause IT professionals to
steer users toward inappropriate social software tools in some cases. The potential damage to IT
interests needs to be weighed against how addressing them can impede user adoption.

• Minimizing the numbers of vendors and technologies. Most enterprises have

understandably put operational efficiency as a top priority for their IT organization. Thus,
the IT organization has a bias toward limiting the number of technologies and vendors it

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© 2009 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved.
 has to manage. IT professionals should beware of recommending a technology for this
reason if it does not fully serve the purpose for which the user needs it.

• Fighting alternatives on the Web. The IT organization has a natural bias toward
enterprise tools, particularly if it has standardized on them. However, some employees
will use consumer tools regardless of what the IT organization may want. Users may
even need to use them, for example, to interact with customers who use a consumer
instant messaging service. The IT organization should not enforce standardized tools to
the extent that it prevents people from using consumer alternatives that they truly need.

• Lack of feel for the social dimension. The IT organization excels at engineering
applications. Like most users, however, many IT professionals have not thought through
the full implications of social software on collaboration, working culture, processes and
so on. IT professionals should not recommend social software tools primarily on the
basis of information engineering without regard to these other dimensions.

RECOMMENDED READING

"Devise 'Use Cases' Before Choosing Collaboration Software"

"Seven Key Characteristics of a Good Purpose for Social Software"
"Tutorial: Real-World Examples of the Business Value of Social Software"
"Social Software Tools Give Researchers New Ways to Collaborate"
"Socialization of Knowledge Management Drives Greater Reuse"
"Pioneers and Settlers: Social Software Maturity Changes IT Support Requirements"

This research is part of a set of related research pieces. See "Roundup of Business Intelligence
and Information Management Research, 3Q09" for an overview.

Publication Date: 28 August 2009/ID Number: G00170380 Page 5 of 6

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