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Should Facebook Be Your Company's Intranet?

On the face of it, that question may seem ridiculous. But for at least one midsize company, the answer already is "Yes!" Take a peek at the benefits -- and the risks -- raised by Serena Software's bold social-networking experiment.

So, why would any company want to use Facebook as a corporate intranet? According to the story published today in bMighty.com by contributor Rusty Weston (one-time editor of InformationWeek.com), there are plenty of good reasons:

1. It's free!
2. Employees already know how to use it.
3. It's available on a wide variety of platforms.
4. There are a large number of add-on features and capabilities available for it.
5. It demonstrates a commitment to employees to improve the quality of workplace interaction.
6. It's a nod toward the needs of younger employees.
7. It can help foster a more open, more modern corporate culture.
8. It draws in resumes from Web-aware employment candidates.
9. It can attract media attention.
10. Did we mention it's free?

Don't Miss The Whole Story: Should Facebook Be Your Company's Intranet? On bMighty.com

Of course, even private Facebook groups were never intended to host a corporate intranet, so there are some compromises in terms of corporate-friendly features and security, and some potentially uncomfortable mixing of personal and business lives. But Serena Software, a relatively staid producer of mainframe software with an average employee age of 46, found that employees quickly learned what was appropriate and what wasn't. And Serena wisely hosts sensitive internal documents elsewhere, linking to them from Facebook. To date, 95% of the company's 800-person workforce uses the system, and participation is still growing.

With the ongoing consumerization of IT, more and more of these kinds of transitions seem inevitable, beginning with smaller companies.

But is it a good thing? The bMighty Manifesto posits that smaller companies' ability to leverage consumer technology is one of their actual advantages compared with the enterprise. And Serena Software seems to agree.

Kyle Arteaga, Serena's VP of corporate communications who proposed the move, believes his company's Facebook intranet is a big success. "We think that companies our size don't have time or energy to run an old-school intranet," Arteaga told Weston.

Sound appealing? Thinking of turning to Facebook for your own company's intranet, or even using it as a supplement to a more-traditional set up? It's not that hard... see the link below for some tips:

Don't Miss: How To Make Facebook Your Company's Intranet On bMighty.com

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