At the end of last year we were asked to make our predictions for this Blog. The problem with making predictions is that you tend to focus on what is newsworthy at the time & then predict the outcome; I’m guilty as charged (my predictions are here if you are interested). Having confidently predicted what will happen in 2009, the news then turned very negative and for the past three months the industry has been pretty inward looking as we reported in mid-January with nothing being hyped. Well yesterday changed all of that with Jive Software announcing Social Business Software (‘SBS’).

To be fair, Jive Software have been around for a while delivering collaboration products: instant messaging; wikis etc This announcement is for a suite of products that, Jive say, will enable large enterprises to use community type software (a la Facebook, Linked In and the like) to promote collaboration & innovation, as well as encouraging new ways of interacting with customers. I’ll let you read the press releases for more detail but where this looks interesting is that there is an analytics package that allows companies who deploy SBS to get a measure of how well the company is collaborating & innovating.

There is a sea change going on in large enterprises who initially saw social networking sites initially as a time waster and yet we’re starting to see their value. How many companies have an ad-hoc LinkedIn or Facebook group set up? These same large companies are now accepting social networking, and driving the first steps towards collaboration through use of wikis and knowledge management systems. It’s an interesting space to watch because the factors driving effective & productive adoption are the combination of technology and social elements. Whilst you can control the technology pretty easily, the cultural elements make a big difference to how an enterprise gets the ultimate value of investment in this type of solution.

The announcement by Jive Software yesterday will help to validate the use of software solutions like this but this is a new marketing proposition and the industry watchers aren’t fully clear where SBS plays against the competition. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see some hyperbole around what this product launch means, especially in the area of sales & marketing collaboration.

Another thought about this brave new world: last week came news about Tom-Tom in the Netherlands in a potential patent lawsuit with Microsoft to try and protect open source licences. That’s just between manufacturers. What would happen if collaboration between customers & suppliers, as promoted by SBS, lead to a customer offering a fantastic idea for a product enhancement which was used to make a lot of money by the recipient, that could be an interesting legal conundrum.

So, I’m going to add another prediction (there’s no rule that says I can’t!). I expect we’re going to see quite a lot of noise now about social computing driving innovation & productivity in the enterprise, and about how it enables customers & suppliers to work much more closely. Then we’re going to see the major software manufacturers positioning their products into this space. The positive benefit is that it will prompt more companies to look seriously at how collaboration tools, not just SBS, can help them.

Hopefully, this is going to be a fun ride.

A recent study carried out by Synovate suggests that over half of the global population does not know what social networking is. There is little wonder. In a bid to sound new, fresh and interesting there is a constant stream of new jargon that is thrown at us every day and social networking is definitely one of those terms.

So, it is not surprising that most people glaze over when you say ’social networking’. You might even be doing it now. Talk about Web 2.0, RSS, podcasts and wikis and you’ll probably doze off altogether…

But the merest mention Facebook or MySpace and people suddenly wake up.

You see, nobody decides “Ooh, I think I’ll do some social networking tonight”, they just want to go on Facebook to check out the messages and photos from their friends. So they may not know what social networking is, but they are probably doing it and simply don’t realise!

The same is true for your business communications. I bet you didn’t block out some time in your diary for ’social networking’, but you’re reading this blog and you are bound to have an opinion on it.

That’s when social networking has the potential to become really powerful as it allows you to build awareness of your business simply by getting involved and communicating with new people. So when you’ve finished reading this blog, remember to post a reply and you’ll be on your way to global fame and fortune (OK, that’s not guaranteed, but you’ve definitely made a start!)

As well as blogging, you might also want to check out Linked In which enables you to exchange information, ideas and opportunities with 25million professionals. Now that’s a pretty impressive business contact list.

Those of us with grey hair may pour scorn on this idea of online networking. After all what’s wrong with simply talking to each other? Nothing, but the Synovate survey also found that, unsurprisingly, younger people were far more aware of and actively used social networking sites. So, although social networking might not be taking over the world yet, it has enormous potential which is increasing as these younger users become the business contacts of tomorrow.

Online communication is now a central part of our work and personal lives and it is here to stay, so you have to use it to your business’ advantage.

Just remember to ditch the jargon and say what you mean!

The folks at Gartner have published their list of the Top 10 concerns for IT in 2008, which looks a bit like this:

1. Green IT
2. Unified Communications
3. Business Process Modelling
4. Metadata Management
5. Virtualization 2.0
6. Mashups & composite Apps
7. Web Platform & WOA
8. Fabric
9. Real World Web
10. Social Software

From our point of view, I’m not sure that we’re overly worried about Social Software yet, but when we get to employing young people who are used to Facebook then I guess we’ll need to think again.

In truth, I’m gladdened by the list as it lines up pretty much with the stuff we’re saying (or at least trying to say). Hopefully we’ll get some movement behind the plans we’re putting together.