University of Michigan Executive Education Program Helps Businesses Harness Social Computing

ANN ARBOR, Mich., March 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Social computing is making inroads into business, and decision makers who want to get ahead of the competition are tackling enterprise-wide projects that harness the information and connections of their employees.

The University of Michigan School of Information Executive Education program (si.umich.edu/executive), in collaboration with social computing company NewsGator, is offering “Making Social Computing Work in Your Enterprise,” a course for the business community. The course offers a conceptual framework for understanding Enterprise 2.0 in terms of business objectives rather than technology features. The course also explores economic, social, and psychological principles that can help Enterprise 2.0 rollouts succeed.

“Online communities, social networking, and user-contributed content dominate the consumer world, and businesses yearn to capture the power of these new models to improve performance,” said professor Paul Resnick, coordinator of the university’s social computing specialization.

“Unfortunately, an organization can’t simply copy and paste consumer social computing tools into the enterprise and hope employees make good use of them. This course will help managers and executives choose the right technical features, according to their business needs, and plan the social interventions that will motivate employees to participate.”

Dean Martha E. Pollack added that the School of Information is home to some of the leading thinkers in social computing. “We are excited about the opportunity to bring their expertise to the corporate world. This new course will provide managers and others responsible for bringing social computing to their enterprise with the insights and tools they need to ensure success.”

The June 1-3 course will address three central questions:

- Which technology features are most useful for meeting business goals?

- Which organizational and social interventions should accompany a technology rollout to ensure productivity gains?

- Which metrics should be used to predict the value of a proposed Enterprise 2.0 project, and to manage the project on an ongoing basis?

The School of Information is collaborating with NewsGator because of NewsGator’s experience helping hundreds of enterprises implement social computing solutions and measure the benefits. NewsGator will provide case studies, best practices, ROI tools, and other research materials.

SOURCE University of Michigan School of Information