Ken Young

In general conversation, the subject of computing trends, like politics and religion, is often best avoided. When non-tech friends ask you what's happening at work, you learn not to mention Linux or OLTP. It's just not done.

As a result we are all social icebergs, revealing only tips of information about our worlds to each other.

How does this relate to the way companies communicate internally and externally? In the workplace, people often do not know what their colleagues are up to, and there may be little incentive to exchange information. A management guru came up with the catchphrase "need to know" for a very good reason.

What is coming to be known as "social software" and specifically "weblogging" is about to change all this. Weblogging, better known as blogging, has enormous implications for corporate communications and knowledge management. Blogging software - see the first web address below for an example - allows people who are not web-literate to publish as often as they like to a page or pages that are publicly accessible. The presentation, with the latest entries at the top of the page, often takes the form of an online diary. What distinguishes a blog from other web sites is that it normally has one clearly identifiable author, making it the most personal of publishing formats.

At present, blogging is very popular among a hardcore of trailblazers but it has all the signs of going mainstream very soon. This buzz is leading researchers to take social software very seriously in the belief that it has enormous potential for business.

One of the big advantages of a weblog is that it allows you to get to know a lot about someone's work, interests and views without having to ask them. The possibility of making useful connections and of learning from each other is enormously expanded.

Take for example the weblog of Ray Ozzie, the creator of Lotus Notes software - see the second web address below. I met Ozzie about five years ago at a lunch organised by IBM. By reading his weblog I can get a unique insight into what he has been doing since then. Because, like most bloggers, he lists other weblogs that he reads regularly I am immediately linked into a wide network of people with whom he shares ideas. For firms, the implications of this technology are as enormous as those of email.

Just like the use of instant messaging, personal publishing through weblogs is likely to get an icy reception in most firms concerned about security and "need-to-know" issues. But smart companies will see that the advantages far outweigh the negatives. They will recognise that weblogging is a new form of knowledge management that has a vital time-based ingredients making it easy to see what another person is currently working on or discussing. If you need encouragement, bear in mind that weblogs are now a common feature in search results on Google and there is talk of a dedicated weblog search tool.

The leading vendors are watching the development of social software and will acquire and package it when they feel the time is right. Savvy firms will seize on the cheap options now to gain vital experience of this exciting new technology.

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