Making the Case for
Social Networks in
Organizational Settings
Email vs. Social Tools
Olga Howard
Note: Please read the accompanying paper at http://olgahow.com/research/

The Small World Problem

Six Degrees of Separation

Which is faster?

3 Steps
Which is faster?

3 Steps
6 Steps
Which is faster?

Erik Johnson of Cubeless
If we think about how long it takes for a person to
• open the email,
• consider if he or she has the information, think about
• who else might have the information, add those people to a
• new forward message, and
• send, each person going through that process could easily spend....
How long?

Erik Johnson of Cubeless
If we think about how long it takes for a person to
• open the email,
• consider if he or she has the information, think about
• who else might have the information, add those people to a
• new forward message, and
• send, each person going through that process could easily spend....
How long? 4 minutes

In this small sample the company spent 7.25 hours
of company time looking for information!

This company spent 40 minutes of
company time looking for information!

Question?
If we agree that the value of the organization is its people, then we will also
agree that the value of the organization is the sum of the knowledge
of its people.
If this is true, and your organization
is operating in an email platform,
your employees only have access
to a small portion of that
knowledge.

In the survey I asked 4 questions:
1. Stuff in my work email box that does not pertain to me is..
2. The stuff in my work email box that I can ignore is..
3. The stuff in my work email box that I need to respond to is..
4. The stuff in my work inbox that is imperative I respond to is..

Wasted Effort
40
30
Response percent out of 32 people
20
10
0
10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
% of email that does not pertain to me
% of email that I can ignore

Must Do
50.0
37.5
Response percent out of 32 people
25.0
12.5
0
10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
% of email I need to respond to
% of email that is imperative I respond to

Imagine a social environment:
• Twitter-like feature in intranets? Everyone in the
company would know what everyone else is doing
• People would scan the conversations, and ignore
what’s not relevant.
• Once in a while, they would find something
meaningful that they could contribute to.

Thanks!
olgaHOW
olgahow.com
703-627-1847