Where is 2014 Headed for Enterprise Social Networks?

It is now the season of making 2014 predictions so we'll join the parade with one general observation about where things are headed in 2014 for Enterprise Social Networks. We believe that although certain organisations will rise to the top and stand out that overall we won't see any 2014 revolutions in culture, leadership, employee engagement or IT success with ESN deployments. But we do foresee one trend which will widely surface  - recognition and acceptance of the failure of organic adoption.

We believe that (in Australia at least) the realisation and acceptance that organic ESN adoption has not worked will lead to new opportunities. Large organisations will have been through their self-inflicted failure cycle. Most will not be shelving their efforts to benefit from the socialisation of their business processes, rather they will be searching for the "new" HOW. 

Of course it turns out that the "new" HOW is no different to the "old how" that they choose not to follow last time (but who are we to tell them that!). By now there are more case studies of success as well as more case studies of failure. We certainly know what Enterprise Social Network success is not. It is not:

• another "IT project";
• lead by enthusiasts, even if that might be the CEO;
• "the same" as other trivial "community" systems that might be found in isolated pockets of the organisation;
• built off employees' interest in external social activities;
• trusted to organic adoption.

A successful approach to ESN deployment has at least the following characteristics:

• tightly integrated to at least one carefully selected business process where it can clearly demonstrate benefits in helping people do their day-to-day jobs;
• integrated into the systems that people use to do their day-to-day jobs;
• integrated into the data stores and Enterprise Architecture relevant to the business processes;
• run by business managers, who also validate the ROI;
• not focused on communication or collaboration or knowledge management except in the context of serving outcomes.

In 2014 we see a broad set of organisations having to restart their ESN efforts, recognising that organic adoption has failed to deliver business benefits, and taking a more focused approach to serving specific business benefits. We think this in fact will be the biggest trend in Enterprise Social Networks in Australia in 2014.

What do you think?