Employer Connections Blog

All of a sudden the privacy (or lack of) in public social networks has come to the fore of the public consciousness. The trigger has been the latest moves by Facebook to leverage its social graph to support its real customers; the advertising clients. These changes should not be surprising. The valuations put on Facebook have all been driven by a perceived ability to monetise its user data. At the same time Mark Zuckerburg has been extremely consistent in his opinion on privacy i.e. there doesn’t need to be any. This approach has been hidden behind a byzantine set of privacy controls that give the impression of control whilst simultaneously making it too complicated to apply it.

Now the dam has broken and even Mr Zuckerburg is suffering. It remains to be seen whether this will slow the growth of Facebook. Probably not, but it may deter the use of public networks to support relationships and transactions that require high degrees of trust.

Bruce Schneier is always worth reading by anyone interested in security in all its guises. Recently he posted on privacy and control and the key point was that privacy does not equal secrecy. Instead privacy is about control, the ability for the user to decide where, when and with whom to share their data. This control needs to be granular, obvious and comprehensive. The conclusion of the essay is that the business model of the public networks will always drive them down the road of eroding privacy. What is perhaps surprising is how long it has taken for people to react.

Companies now have the opportunity to provide trusted social networks, driven by the internal value of their communities and offering genuinely comprehensive and easy to use controls. For users looking for a haven in troubled waters this will become an increasingly reassuring alternative which will benefit the employer brand.

The US Military Research Agency, DARPA, is well-known for running competitions that aim to catalyse progress in various technologies by harnessing brainpower outside the usual organisations. For example a couple of competitions have produced vehicles that can drive themselves, firstly across a desert course and then through an urban environment.

More recently a competition was held in the field of distributed intelligence. Ten red balloons were moored in locations around the US and the prize was won by the first team to correctly identify the locations of all ten balloons. The idea was to see how the Internet and social networking could be used to organise and gather information across a wide area.

The plan was to run the competition for seven days but the winners, from MIT, took only nine hours to find the balloons. Their methods highlight the value of building trusted social networks and tracking (and rewarding) referrals across multiple connections.

Firstly, MIT built their network through invitations and each new member could themselves invite new members. This enabled a network to be built rapidly but with every member vouched-for thus avoiding the potential for deliberate misinformation.

Secondly, they offered not only rewards for the spotters but also for the people who invited the spotters, the people that invited the inviters, the people that invited them and so on. This meant a much wider group of people could benefit from winning the competition than just the people who spotted the balloons. The incentive to build the network was thus greatly increased.

Now, imagine those red balloons are your ideal candidates in the sea of people that is the current recruitment market. Imagine you could build a trusted social network to identify and reach those candidates quickly and easily. Imagine if you could track and reward the people that helped find those candidates, not just the people that were the final link but all those who helped share the information and build the connection.

That is what a trusted social network can do for your recruitment and your business. That is the power of Employer Connections.

trust (n): assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something

Communities are built on trust. Trust is the lubricant that allows groups of people to function and prosper. Trust is an emotional concept but also a logical one based on past experiences and transactions.

Trust allows us to work more efficiently. It enables us to predict how other people will behave with confidence and lets us exchange goods and services with others. Combining the two means we can make exchanges where the repayment may be some time in the future and in a form not yet defined.

Building the concept of trust into Employer Connections systems allows users and  communities to realise the value locked up in their relationships and networks. Spreading trust outside the immediate work environment exponentially increases the potential benefits.

Types of Trust

There are three types of trust that are generated in different ways but can be combined together to provide an overall picture of the trust in a relationship. Employer Connections systems reflect these different types and use the combined result to deliver innovative features and functionality.

Personal Trust

This is the trust one person has in another based on their relationship, shared experiences and past interactions. Employer Connections systems recognise this type of trust by assigning a connection strength between participants. This strength is a mutual decision between the two members and can be adjusted as a relationship grows and changes.

Trust by Proxy

In modern societies there are countless examples of trust by proxy – where we trust a person based on the uniform they’re wearing, the company they work for or the job they have. In these cases our trust is in the organisation that gave that person the role rather than in the person themselves. In Employer Connections systems this is reflected in the various communities that members are assigned to which not only give them certain rights but also indicate to other community members a related level of trust.

Earned Trust

In any community a person’s past actions, if they are visible and recorded, are an indicator of how trustworthy they can be in the future. Within Employer Connections systems the behaviour of participants is tracked and audited. There is no anonymous access and all identities are verified. In addition good behaviour and active participation is recognised and rewarded through awards and ratings. These can be used to enable privileges and indicate reliability to other users.

Trust Drives Functionality

A trusted relationship or network can deliver many more benefits than a simple or open network. At it’s most basic level this allows clients to control the level of access to the systems via community membership and earned rights. At an individual level the concept of trust allows users to, for example, perform actions on behalf of others and easily weight the contributions of other members.

Being able to earn trust through the system, and having this trust recognised and rewarded, is a key element in promoting regular use and contributions. Secure identity management and comprehensive auditing encourages self-policing and improves the overall level of trust in the system.

To conclude, trust is a key element in the functioning of communities in the real world that has not yet been fully explored in online social networks. Employer Connections aim to fully incorporate trust into our systems and deliver the value that this will unlock.

To keep up to date with developments and for further information please register on this site or email us at  info@employerconnections.com. Let us know what you think.

Hugh Fordham
Chief Technology Officer
Tel: +44 (0) 1727 811132
Email: hugh.fordham@employerconnections.com
Website: www.employerconnections.com

The deployment of Web 2.0 technologies in the corporate environment (often referred to as Enterprise 2.0) is following a novel path. In the past innovation has begun in the enterprise and then passed into the consumer sphere. With Web 2.0 technologies the reverse is happening and the introduction of such technologies into the enterprise is often being triggered by employees who use the same technologies outside work.

In a sense the deployment is happening in a haphazard and bottom-up fashion and this has raised concerns, notably about security and the return on investment of such initiatives. Nevertheless recent data is showing that, when properly implemented, these technologies deliver measurable business value.

In particular a major survey by McKinsey, a leading organisational consulting firm, provides data showing that the level of usage continues to grow and companies are increasingly seeing competitive advantage from the results.

Usage is Growing

McKinsey have been conducting this survey for the past three years. Over this time they have seen an increase in the proportion of employees using the tools for internal collaboration and communicating with customers.

65% of respondents use the technologies for internal collaboration. Companies that have embedded the tools into their processes have seen the largest impact – mainly through improved communication outside silos. This avoids duplication of effort and leverages knowledge in other areas.

58% of respondents use the technologies for customer communication (principally customer service and marketing). The main benefit has been as a cost-effective channel to a broad range of customers. There is concern about the negative impact of unfavourable opinions but this has been mitigated by using moderators.

Benefits

69% of survey respondents said their companies had gained measurable business benefits. These included:

Partners

One area where usage is still in its infancy is connecting with business partners and suppliers. Only 40% of respondents use the technologies for this purpose. It is concluded that such interactions typically follow a structured process that may not be compatible with the informal nature of Web 2.0 technologies.

Andy Miller of McKinsey concludes that:

“To drive increased usage for managing interactions with suppliers and partners, companies will need to find ways use these technologies to augment the formal relationships between business entities and not substitute formal interactions with more ad hoc ones.” source

This is undoubtedly true but companies also should consider how the technologies can support the so-called conversation-model of sales, especially for services.

Conclusions

Web 2.0 technologies are increasing accepted in the workspace and are demonstrating real value. Another notable results from the survey is that investment in these technologies has continued apace even during the recent downturn. As innovation continues apace in the consumer field it is becoming clear that:

“ … expertise in the use of Web 2.0 technologies is becoming a required skill for all enterprises.”

Full survey details

Hugh Fordham
Chief Technology Officer
Tel: +44 (0) 1727 811132
Email: hugh.fordham@employerconnections.com
Website: www.employerconnections.com

The problem

A talent supply problem, brought about by ageing workforce demographics and knowledge economy skill shortages, is probably the biggest constraint to today’s corporate development and growth.

The ability to reach and engage with the best people is the competitive advantage that employers need to create distinction.

Relationships and human cooperation have existed since Stone Age man discovered that hunting together was more successful than hunting alone. Communities evolved regionally, but have now extended globally as technology and Internet have emerged.

In this “small world”  with just “6 degrees of separation” between any one person and the rest of the human race, we are faced with complex choice. Search engines enable us to find almost anyone in today’s business world by “key word” searching of names and context.

However, the problem is not so much in reaching talent – but in reaching the right talent. This dilemma is constantly played out in the HR departments around the world in their quest to attract, hire, engage, retain and rehire the best people.

Public social networks, such as LinkedIn and Facebook, provide a tantalising opportunity to achieve some of these talent management objectives, as these communities are able to deploy effective referral technologies. These are highly popular sites, but their long-term future still seems unclear. Their ongoing challenge is in the monetisation of membership growth to satisfy advertising customers.

Our solution to the talent problem

We can help you build your own trusted social network to reach the right talent on your own terms.

It is about quality of relationships not quantity.

We believe that best practice employers will want to make sure that all their relationships and connections nearest to home are “tapped” into their own unique social networks. You already know these contacts, or you know people who may be able to reach them. These connections have some affinity based relationship to your organization and will generate the best quality returns, in terms of providing access to talent, in the shortest time possible.

Reaching the people you already know, or can gain access to, is the competitive advantage you need in business.

Our solutions focus on delivering distinction and benefits in recruitment, business development and social engagement. See our website for more details.

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Peter Ward
Chief Executive Officer
Tel: +44 (0) 1727 811132
Email: peter.ward@employerconnections.com
Website: www.employerconnections.com