Social media and multimedia

Chapter 5. How to use social media?

Social media has offered us a new set of capabilities for individuals and businesses. Social media can enhance organizational collaboration and communication.

Why do organizations need communication and collaboration?

Organizations depend on effective collaboration and communication within and outside the boundaries of the organization. It is necessary that there is communication and collaboration between the different departments, business partners, external stakeholders and customers. Companies that operate globally need good communication and collaboration between the different locations or subsidiaries.

Organizations used task forces to solve problems. These task forces are temporary working groups with a finite life cycle and task. However, due to the increased globalization companies now use virtual teams. These teams consist of members from different geographic locations which are put together to collaborate on a project.

The members of this team come and go as they are needed and can be part of several different teams. The tasks of these virtual teams are very dynamic and the members need to be flexible.

If you work with a team on a project you need several different communications, like talking, sharing files and making decisions with each other. There are several ways in which you can communicate with each other. We can distinguish between synchronous and asynchronous communication. Synchronous communication happens at the same time, like a phone call, while asynchronous communication is not coordinated in time, like an e-mail.

Virtual teams often have virtual meetings. These virtual meetings take place in an online environment and can be done synchronously, like a teleconference, or asynchronously, like discussion boards. In the past few years, several different tools to support communication and collaboration have emerged.

Groupware is defined as a class of software that enables people to work together more effectively. We can distinguish groupware on the ground of whether there is synchronous or asynchronous collaboration and communication and whether groups work together face-to-face or distributed.

Groupware supports several modes of group interaction:

• Live meetings in electronic meeting facility
• Electronic meeting facility as home base
• Virtual teams
• Synchronous distributed meetings

Discussion forms are widely used for group communications. Discussion forms are also known as discussion boards or online forums and replace traditional bulletin boards and allow for discussions between participants.

There are many forms of synchronous and asynchronous software. An electronic meeting system (EMS) is defined as a sophisticated software tool that is used to support group members in solving problems and making decisions through interactive structured processes. Examples of such structured processes are idea evaluation, electronic idea generation and voting. Groups stay on track with the help of these structured processes.

Over the years the power of processors of personal computers has increased and Internet connections are faster now. Because of this we are now able to engage in desktop videoconferencing. To do this you need a webcam, a speaker or microphone, videoconferencing software and an Internet connecting with high speed. Many conference rooms of organizations have a videoconferencing system that enables team members across the world.......read more