Our company recently went through some changes within the marketing group and a new consultant has been putting together a communications strategy for our internal departments. She has proposed we begin using a social networking style of intranet to promote inner-department communication as well as serve as an enterprise knowledge base system.

I really like the approach as it employs the communication strategy of a social network, but at the same time builds a knowledge base system for the enterprise.

Microsoft seems to get this theory as it has moved toward this approach with its wave 14 release due our next year. Wave 14 is Microsoft's next generation Office and Sharepoint technologies merged to provide corporations insight and network knowledge as it grows.

For example, employees can join their teams in documenting status of projects, meeting notes and Q&A discussions within the project wiki. Additionally, employees can keep a blog of their ideas or interests so interested employees can subscribe to RSS feeds. Instant messenger can be integrated along with enterprise search to bring all the employees together.

I think the bottom line is it depends on what type of culture your company has. If it’s open and generally works as a cohesive unit, the social networking software would probably fit right in. if on the other hand your company is more closed and let’s just say inter departmental communication is a challenge (think silos), then it may be some time before you twitter about something going on at work...