Social networks don a new avatar for the workplace

The tone is decidedly businesslike,as employees exchange messages about customer orders,new products and closing deals. And the general rule is that if you dont want your company president to see it,dont post it, said John G Bivona,a customer relations manager at Nikon Instruments,which makes microscopes.

As social networks increasingly dominate communications in private lives,businesses of all sizes from tiny start-ups to midsize companies like Nikon to behemoths like Dell are adopting them for workplace. Although it is difficult to quantify how many firms use internal social networks,a number of software companies have sensed the opportunity and offer various systems,some free to existing customers,others that charge a fee per user.

Its one more instance of how consumer technology trends,like the use of tablet computers,are crossing into office life. Because of Facebook,most people are already comfortable with the idea of following their colleagues. But in the business world,the connections are between colleagues,not personal friends or family,and the communications are meant to be about work matters like team projects,production flaws and other routine business issues.

At Nikon,for example,which employs 500 people in offices throughout the US Canada and Brazil,a code of conduct for using the service leaves little room for the idle chit-chat that is pervasive on Facebook. Still,it can be tricky to transport the mores and practices of social networking into the office. For instance,some workers prefer to be lurkers who read posts rather than write them. Others are just not interested. At Symantec,the computer security company,a few employees initially disliked the idea of an internal social network,but nevertheless used it to air their complaints.

Another issue is how to protect corporate secrets. The systems are generally set up so that firms can determine who belongs to specific groups on the network.

Yet problems still arise over where the data is ultimately stored. Some social network providers use their own servers. But that may conflict with the rules of some potential clients that prohibit storing company information outside their firewall,said Susan Landry,an analyst with Gartner.