For HR leaders Web 2.0 is a phenomenal opportunity to engage with their employees and talent community and the community at large..but they need to know. In this blog I will share examples of how companies are leveraging these social computing technologies to gain competitive advantage in talent management.

So what is Web 2.0? It is the second phase of the revolution that started almost 15 years ago with the introduction Netscape browser and changed how we access knowledge, communicate and collaborate with each other. Forrester Research identified a trend it called “ Social Computing” where people are socially and professionally connecting with each other using on line tools and social networks like Linked In, Facebook , Orkut to get things and information from each other rather than from centralized structured institutions. People buy from each other on Ebay vs. going to a supermarket or store; people in Bangalore rent apartments from Craigslist vs. looking through the classified section in newspapers. My son downloaded Open Office – a Microsoft Office competitor that is free and is being created by engineers working together across the world vs. a big company like Microsoft. Businesses and HR are ambivalent about how to put its arm around this phenomenon as businesses are built on command and control and organized dissemination of information. This undermines that control and flow of information. This revolution has already transformed businesses, created new business models and how companies do business. Encyclopedia Britannica which was the fountain of knowledge, cost a fortune to own and a room to store has been replaced by Wikipedia which is free, real time and takes no space. This revolutions has been embraced in our personal lives. One out of seven urban couples married in 2007 met online; MySpace is the 11th largest country in the world; at Summit HR we communicate with candidates more over SIMS than email
Among the top trends Watson Wyatt has identified for 2008 was companies adopting advanced, “web 2.0” technology. With the rapid growth of consumer-oriented web 2.0 applications, organizations are considering increasingly interactive strategies and technologies. While many corporations are using web 2.0 elements such as blogs and wikis, organizations are just beginning to implement other elements of social networking. All of these systems could reduce the focus on traditional e-mail and make work communication a more dynamic experience for employees.

Let me first share few examples of how web 2.0 is changing the HR world
Connecting with Talent Employees and talent community are natural groups for such social network. They work for you or would like to work for you. Dow Chemical was one of the pioneering adopters of intranet and recognized the value of social computing especially to keep in touch with former and retired employees but understood the need for corporate governance and risk management that is imperative for a 50 billion dollar global company.

Dow launched a social network primarily aimed at is US workforce that allowed people to upload their profile and pictures that could be accessed by current employees and alumni.

One month after launch, more than 3,000 users had posted profiles, including 2,624 current employees, 93 former employees and 374 retirees. Managers are effectively using the platform to hire people obtain referrals or bring in retired employees for short tern projects. The cost savings of hiring using this platform over traditional methods paid for the cost of technology is a few hires.

Listening Bell Canada like any large company has employees that have frustrations and complaints and they do not know what how to channel them and when they have a good idea do not know who to go to or move to forward .

Bell Canada came up a ID –Ah!. Anyone can submit ideas , grievances and have employees vote on them. In 18 months shared over three thousand ideas , 15, 000 employees have visited the site and 6,00 have voted 27 of the top ideas has been significantly reviewed
an d 12 have been implemented.

Here is a list of the component technologies
Blog - A web site (“web log”) where people or groups “post” their thoughts, videos, pictures comments, usually displayed in reverse chronological order. Readers of blogs add their own comments and thoughts blogs link with each other to create a blogosphere. It a is great platform for organxtaion to understand what is happening in their company and reach out and connect with the talent community.

SNS (Social Network Sites ) – Members of these sites maintain their profile, picture, videos and share with other members their mood, thoughts, ideas. MySpace and Facebook already have over tens of millions members and Facebook is adding 1 million users in India per month. Social networks have emerged based on interest and geography. Linked in targets professionals. Orkut is popular in Brazil. Hi 5 and Bebo dominate Europe

Podcast - A digital audio or video file distributed over the Internet for play back on media players and computers. Some are live and interactive. The word is derived from Apple’s iPod and “broadcast.”

Wiki - “What I Know Is.” It is a web site where various people contribute to the content and take shared responsibility editing and maintain the truthiness of the content. According to Wikipedia (the largest wiki), the word comes from Honolulu’s Wiki buses (wiki means “fast” in Hawaiian), .
Here are the four factors that makes adoption of Web2.0 easy and inevitable
1) Inexpensive –Most if the time the software is free.
2) Easy to implement – This is not your centralized deployment of ERP system. Web 2.0 thrives on amorphous adoption by people.
3) No training needed.
4) It is powered by human need to connect, hear and listen