Social media shake pharma order

In IT genealogy, Web 2.0 spawned Enterprise 2.0 (E2.0), the content-, knowledge-, and collective-input-savvy corporation. Now Web 2.0 and E2.0 have spawned social knowledge networks.

SKNs step up the collective-input capability. They provide all the functions of traditional knowledge management systems, but they add such social media tools as blogs, wikis, online ratings, discussions, and social tags, according to an article in E-Commerce Times.

In a pharmaceutical company, a researcher conducting late-stage clinical testing could use the SKN to access colleague reports describing side-effects of the drug in a portion of the population. The information is centrally available, but user ratings, comments, and social tags from colleagues flesh out the data skeleton.

Of course, the greater communication and collaboration that SKNs provide may be more than most companies like. In fact, many companies continue to struggle even with the E2.0 concept, which they see as wreaking havoc with existing boundaries, processes and practices. Some even view E2.0 as a threat to corporate control over the knowledge and content that keep it in business.

SKNs, however, are managed by a designated administrator who controls what, when and how contributions are made to the network using a "social volume knob" of security tools, the article says.

- read the article

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