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II g- Online networking
: the LinkedIn example and the foaf model
The advent of LinkedIn[26] is in my eyes, only natural, after years of
changes in the way we work. LinkedIn is even what I would call
the perfect networking online tool. At any rate it has become
almost obligatory for these thousands of professionals who want
to build their own informal networks. The principle on which LinkedIn
is hinging is simple. It is named the FOAF[27]
model and it was made popular by the Friendster[28] website. It consists in inviting the owners
of the e-mail addresses which populate your personal address book
to join your LinkedIn network of friend and/or colleagues. In
their turn, all these invitees may invite their own friends and
colleagues to join their networks and opportunities therefore
multiply. The basic principle underpinning the FOAF model is that known as ‘six degrees’[29], i.e. that anybody
in the world is no more than six degrees away from you. Anytime
you search for a person through LinkedIn (be it a search by name
or profile), the system will display how you are connected to
that person and how many levels there are between you and him/her.
You may then ask whoever in your network knows this person to
act as a go-between. LinkedIn look-alikes do exist but it looks
like the system and its amazing database are largely unequalled.
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Figure 7: 3 main
functions of the LinkedIn online service [30]
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Figure 8:Sample
search results page in LinkedIn. |
The LinkedIn system is independent from hierarchy and rank. It
knows no boundary. Employees and managers may use it for their
own benefit, but at the same time, the broadening of their networks
may also be profitable to the organisations to which they belong.
At the end of the day, a firm whose staff is better at tying links
with other professionals from other organisations is also a firm
where information circulates better than others. It’s a win-win
approach.
II h- The virtuous
cycle of humans and technology
Of course, I never meant to say that LinkedIn invented networks,
nor that it’s informal networks that created tools like LinkedIn.
What I mean is that humans and technology are part of the same
virtuous relationship. LinkedIn has gained amazing visibility
in no time (a few months only to be precise, since the end of
2003). This amazing popularity made LinkedIn an accelerator for
informal networks. However, it is not unusual that pranksters
infiltrate networking systems, the way it happened with the friendster
network[31]. Friendster
was soon infested with fake users, nicknamed ‘fakesters’, i.e.
phoney users who decided to call themselves funny names (most
of the time, assumed celebrity names) in order to make fun of
the system and ridicule it and its fans. The whole thing ended
up in a fight between real users (hence nicknamed ‘realsters’)
therefore enticing the friendster website owners to clean up their
database in order to protect their true subscribers who were fed
up with the spam they kept receiving from fakesters. Informal
networks, however self-sufficient sometimes need the help of a
hierarchy too.
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Box2:Example No.2:The ‘Pole Position’ partnership programme
between France Telecom Enterprise Solutions and CISCO Systems
FT and CISCO Systems are working together very closely
as part of the Pole Position alliance programme, which is
hinging on the following activities.
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1) Sales alignment with a view to better
service common customers,
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2) In depth work on ‘verticalisation’
of offerings, namely with regards to the retail and
finance sectors,
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3) Joint marketing work on horizontal
offerings such as VOIP,
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4) Joint work on the positioning of
France Telecom as an on-site service provider through
the GOLD certification programme.
As a result, positioning France Telecom as a sole provider
of both managed and integrated services. This programme
is very powerful and is generating a large amount of incremental
revenue for the operator each year. It was created out of
the ecosystem of FT under the impulse of FT’s newly created
Business Alliance department. Thanks to the exceptional
level of intimacy, both internal and external, that was
created, a very large cross-functional project (a.k.a. programme)
was created.
This programme involves hundreds of contributors at the
service provider side and a dozen of full-time channel account
managers, engineers and business developers from Cisco Systems.
This programme is structured in a totally de-centralised
fashion, with champions at all levels of the hierarchy in
both companies. Each champion s in charge of his or her
leg of the programme, be it vertical (Finance, Public sector,
…) or Marketing, innovation, operations,…
The status of the programme is monitored through monthly
steering committee meetings and bi-monthly high-level exec-sponsor
meetings. All participants are in charge of their part of
the programme, which ensures ownership and commitment due
to project buy-in at all levels.
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