Klout is making a big play for your external social influence and with a recent strategic move with Bing and continually trying to push recruiting to use a person’s Klout score within the hiring process the next big play it needs to make is internally. And here’s why.
TIBCO’s tibbr made a big splash with v4 last week at #TUCON and strengthened its positioning among perennial favourites like Yammer as the social tool of choice for the organisational network. But while all these tools offer the SysAdmin analytical capabilities to monitor how the network is being used what they don’t offer is a peek at just who the influencial users are. Collecting badges and gamified reward schemes for engagement is one thing, but to determine just who in the network is frequently seen as the go-to-person for information on a topic and just how widespread their sphere of influence is is currently an unknown and potential goldmine for HR and organisational design consultants. It also reinforces my beliefs that internal networks will self-organise naturally rather than stick to traditional hierarchical boundaries.
I wrote a couple of years back how using networked communities and social enterprise software can help monitor and track individuals worth keep hold of that old silo’d and hierarchical org structures would keep hidden from view (especially if they’re perceived as a threat by peers)
There’s another advantage in understanding the social enterprise network dynamic. What is the impact of a key networked resource leaving the organisation. Right now it’s build on their place in a traditional hierarchy and how many people sit below and above them in the chain. Under a community operating model that span of influence could be exponential yet completely hidden. Would you really let this person go if you understood how much the larger community relied on them ? I seriously doubt you would.
Like I wrote in Rebels vs SMEs, subject matter experts know the business by the book but it’s the rebels who push the boundaries of the art of the possible and using something like Klout can expose them as the real champions of your business.
There’s incredible resistance to using Klout, Peer Index, Kred and so forth to screen candidates for job positions but there’s a much bigger play at stake. If Klout is listening it needs to focus within the enterprise to win in the long term.