Editor's note: Daniel Burrus is founder and CEO of Burrus Research, Hartland, Wis. This article appeared in the April 7, 2010, edition of Quirk's e-newsletter.
Innovative companies are beginning to transform Web 2.0 into a new trend called Business 2.0, which uses Web-based social networking applications (many of which were originally created for personal use) to bolster teamwork, customer reach and internal and external collaboration in a low-cost, seamless way. In the research industry, where a premium is placed on connecting with consumers and cultivating a captive audience at budget-friendly prices, these collaborative networking tools may be just the thing to improve information-sharing and client offerings and boost your bottom line.
Following is an overview of the best Business 2.0 tools:
Personal tools with business applicability
Facebook
Personal use: Facebook enables you to connect and share with the people in your life. Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school and region to connect and interact with others. People can add friends, send messages and update personal profiles to notify friends about themselves.
Business 2.0 use: Large organizations can connect all of their employees, or members, with Facebook. Some are finding an added advantage of using an internal, secure version of Facebook. This has helped organizations to increase internal networking and collaboration.
Ask yourself: Could we use Facebook, or our own internal version, to get people collaborating at a higher level?
Twitter
Personal use: Twitter is a microblogging platform that allows friends, family and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of short, quick tweets using no more than 140 characters per message. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or co-workers. Users can receive updates via the Twitter site or other social networking sights such as Facebook. Young people use Twitter for answering the question: What are you doing?
Business 2.0 use: Business users could change that question to: What problem are you trying to solve? Several companies have used this as a fast way to pitch services and solve customer problems.
Ask yourself: Could we use Twitter to solve problems faster with our organization or our customers?
Wikipedia
Personal use: Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that anyone can use to find information on virtually any topic. Anyone can edit the content as well.
Business 2.0 use: A large manufacturing company with engineers in locations around the world increased problem-solving and collaboration by creating an internal, secure version of Wikipedia for sharing information on parts and service offerings as well as repair and maintenance instructions. Retailers and suppliers could create a version of Wikipedia to foster education and training as well as enhanced information sharing.
Ask yourself: Could we create an internal version of Wikipedia to better support information and knowledge sharing?
YouTube
Personal use: YouTube is a video-sharing Web site where users can upload, view and share video clips. YouTube displays a wide variety of user-generated video content as well as movie clips, product demonstrations and commercials. Unregistered users can watch the videos, while registered users can upload an unlimited number of videos.
Business 2.0 use: Businesses are posting humorous commercial videos to generate interest in their products with great success. The more entertaining it is, the more people watch it and the more likely it is to go viral. Business partners could create a YouTube-like channel for the purpose of educating and training.
Ask yourself: Could we enhance our marketing efforts as well as general communication by using YouTube?
Digg
Personal use: Digg is a social news Web site made for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the Internet by submitting and accessing links and stories. Voting stories positively or negatively is the site's cornerstone function, respectively called digging and burying.
Business 2.0 use: Many organizations have found this to be a good way to track the most interesting advances in technology or the most useful business news. Large organizations can create their own internal version for sharing what employees consider to be the most useful information.
Ask yourself: Could we use Digg, or our own internal version, to get people to share their most interesting and valuable Web-based information with each other?
Delicious
Personal use: Delicious is a social bookmarking Web service for storing, sharing and discovering site bookmarks. It uses a non-hierarchical classification system in which users can tag each of their bookmarks with freely-chosen index terms.
Business 2.0 use: Business users can share their most useful Web sites with co-workers or business partners. If a customer purchases a product, sellers could share relevant bookmarks that keep the customer coming back for more information and hopefully more products.
Ask yourself: Could we use Delicious to share important new Web sites faster within our organization or with our customers?
Visual communications
Personal use: Visual communications, unlike traditional video conferencing, uses your desktop, laptop or even your smartphone to hold a quick, anytime-anywhere videoconference with other people. Travelers who must be away from home are using their laptops in hotel rooms with broadband access in the form of free software such as Skype and AIM to communicate with family and friends.
Business 2.0 use: Businesses are discovering the power of visual communications to enhance the connection with their sales force, business partners and customers.
Ask yourself: Could we use visual communications to enhance communications internally and externally?
Purely Business 2.0 tools
Wiki
A Wiki is a collaborative Web page or collection of Web pages designed to enable anyone to create a quick Web page that allows visitors to search the Wiki's content and edit the content in real time, as well as view updates since their last visit. Wikis are often used to create collaborative Web sites and to power community Web sites. On a moderated Wiki, Wiki owners review comments before additions are made to the main body of the topic. Additional features include calendar sharing, live A/V conferencing, RSS feeds and more.
Ask yourself: Could we use Wikis to inform and gather feedback from employees and customers more easily?
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a business-oriented professional networking site for exchanging information, ideas and opportunities. There are over 35 million registered users spanning 170 industries actively networking with each other. For example, large insurance companies use LinkedIn to promote networking with their independent sales representatives. HR professionals from all over the world could use LinkedIn to share best practices.
Ask yourself: Could we use LinkedIn to expand our organizational network for enhanced knowledge sharing?
Cloud computing and software as a service
In cloud computing, some or all of the storage, software, IT processes and data center facilities you use can exist on your provider's server, which is maintained and cared for by your provider, giving you 24/7 access from any device anywhere. The cost of upgrading hardware and software, maintenance and associated IT labor costs can be dramatically reduced or eliminated. Currently, the ideal organization would be any size company that's facing big investments in computing and communications infrastructure. Software as a service (SaaS) such as salesforce.com has a customer relationship management package; SciQuest has a spend management package; and Google, Microsoft and others have a suite of offerings.
Ask yourself: Could we use cloud computing and SaaS to streamline our IT needs?
A new competitive advantage
By reframing the use of social networking technology, companies can increase communication, collaboration and problem-solving and gain a new competitive advantage with little cost. Remember, many of these tools are free or nearly free, making them accessible to even the smallest of businesses. The sooner you embrace Business 2.0 and put it to work for you, the faster you can penetrate new markets and grow your business.