Skip to content

Out on a LIMSThe Blog for People Who Risk Life and LIMS on a Daily Basis

Really Cool Inter-Company Social Networking Software

Volume IEntry 101 of 116 in 20102 min read1 comment ↓

Written by Gloria Metrick on . Published as written. It may not reflect how these systems work today.

Finally, I have a customer with some of that really cool inter-company social networking software that we keep reading about and hearing about that will entirely transform the company. Now, I can create my own internal blog, share things with other projects members, and do all sorts of things. It is super-cool! Are we using it, yet? Nope.

Of course, the first part of the issue was to get the software rolled-out and available. Now, getting us all to use it is another matter. It’s integrated with other tools, somewhat, so it won’t be entirely foreign to us or entirely separate from all our other tools. For example, the team uses MicroSoft Communicator to chat, meet and see each other’s availability. This new software runs in a browser window and is integrated with Communicator so that we can have the same functionality from within the new software’s browser. Plus, it has all the features you could imagine you’d need, such as blogs, discussions, file sharing, and many other features. It basically has the features of most of the on-line social networking sites, too.

But human beings don’t like change. We’re tied to our Communicator and our e-mail. Getting us to change will require both to show us an extremely good reason to change AND probably find a way to push us a bit, too.

The irony is that, while we talk about how to roll-out our various laboratory informatics software and to get users to use it, that's exactly the same issue the other software has with regard to us. If this other software team can convert us to use it, then we should take some user acceptance tips from them, because we’re a pretty stubborn group.  :-)

Gloria Metrick
GeoMetrick Enterprises
http://www.GeoMetrick.com/

The conversation

1 comment from 1 person on October 17, 2010.

  1. Jean-Etienne

    Three small thoughts regarding the roll-out of social software inside a private company ...

    1. There is first the problem of freedom. Sharepoint is not Facebook. Blog posts and documents posted on the company internal website will be seen by colleagues and, in some companies, people are very proud of themselves and don't want to appear as fools. Items posted on Facebook are there for friends and, if you configured Facebook properly, only friends will see them. Another issue dealing with freedom is the question of competition: sadly, some people/teams won't share information with you/your team unless the collaboration is formally established. And a third issue deals with the regulator: if your company is subject to information preservation, you may think twice before publishing anything, even on the internal website.

    2. A second thing is the difference of use between the two tools you mention: employees *can* use the social tools if they want to but they are *obliged* to use the LIMS for their work. The introduction of a new LIMS is associated with a long period of interaction between IT and end-users ; there is fewer interactions (if any) between the introduction of new social tools and employees. The roll-out of a new LIMS is followed by (mandatory) trainings for the end-users, a physical user manual, online help, etc. while the roll-out of additional, optional tools is not (or not so good).

    3. Finally, the mean age of people in a company is also important here. I don't have exact number to hand but if you include managers, directors, etc. the mean age of employees in any established company should be around 40-50. The mean age of Facebook users should be something like 25-35. Now companies start to struggle with the arrivals of "Millennials" for whom social tools are part of their lives. Giving them the same tool but internal may be a solution.

    P.S. As always, these are general thoughts and are not meant to target some particular behavior in a particular environment :-)

Comments are closed. This conversation is from 2010. Ask us to remove a comment

Working on the same problem in your lab?

Talk to a laboratory informatics scientist