Back in the early 1960s, product managers in skinny ties and shirtsleeves put workers into teams using the cutting-edge technologies of the day: the switchboard gal, the IBM Selectric and the memorandum. Forty years later, the wireless age makes connecting people who work in the same organization far quicker and more efficient, right?

In many ways, today it’s the same old story. Sharing knowledge can often be as unreliable or incompatible as the whitewall tire-sized rolodex of the Brylcreem-ed boss of yesteryear.

Only connect

Putting Alice from Account Services together with Stanley from Creative can be far more difficult now – given that Alice is in the Manila office and has never before heard of Stanley or laid eyes on his Chicago colleagues.

Like the company men (and women) of the Dictaphone era, today’s workers build networks on relationships, trust and word of mouth. Connecting today may be technically easier, but how do we achieve actual collaboration? In the modern multinational corporate environment, what can hasten meaningful input in which we truly connect with those who possess the information and know-how critical to our work?

Enter the corporate social network

Web 2.0 – the rise of user-driven online products or services such as YouTube, Facebook and Wikipedia – is evolving to address the needs of the modern workplace. Companies are beginning to build internal social networks, accessible by employees, which let workers share information and collaborate in integrated ways that can enhance collaboration by orders of magnitude.

A 2007 McKinsey survey confirms the corporate world’s widespread interest in bringing to the corporate environment online social networks and other user-driven collaborative tools (peer to peer networks, blogs, podcasting, etc.) In fact, three out of four executives surveyed said they’re now committing resources to collaborative technologies such as P2P networking, social networks and Web services. (Many reported that they should have acted on this sooner.)

Faster Connections

With the enterprise social network, internal working relationships you might not have otherwise been able to cultivate are only a few mouse-clicks away.

And that’s not all. The network also can:

• Broaden word of mouth sources and “kitchen cabinet” expertise. The corporate social network helps users find common sources and contacts so they can approach one another, tap expertise and cut costs (or time).

• Tap specific user(s) and datapoints. Social networks let users track what each is doing. Networking software weighs messages and documents, ranking and evaluating (and protecting) information instrumental to success.

• Identify experts. Need someone who’s fluent in German and also understands aerodynamics? Based on profiles users complete detailing their background and job descriptions the network lets the user gather likely names of those who might work together in the future.

• Blog. Companies using blogs are finding that the sites help link networks of people and even regional offices in “town square”-style ways. Rather than use e-mail or v-mail, they may use blogs to share information about clients or business solutions. Posting to a blog instead of sending a large email thread taps the collective network on their own time, in a more easily digestible format than email or even Powerpoint can.

• Enliven information/bring relevance. Functioning as a single repository of information, corporate Wikipedia sites – which are open for revision and updating by every employee — exist to aid workers in capturing essentials as well as adapting within the organization. User-controlled corporate blogs and wikis will depend, however, on enthusiastic core audiences who’ll move the needle. Managers must learn to identify and cultivate these core contributors.

Sudden Impact

Connecting users who would otherwise perhaps never (or not as quickly) meet elsewhere, Facebook, Myspace and other social networking tools are a success in the consumer space.

No one gets this more than the generation of Twentysomething’s, raised on social networking and now entering the workforce. Thus being able to rapidly define who’s working on what, to share vital information or identify specific expertise, is critical.

For Ogilvy, the WPP Group brand colossus, widespread internal use of social networking has resulted in improved customer development and retention, and increased internal “sharing.”

Ogilvy created an online, real-time knowledge-sharing and collaboration tool accessible from anywhere on Earth. The branding giant uses collaborative workspaces to capture information as it’s created, and “many-to-many” collaboration to share ideas across communities and a social network base integrated into the enterprise.

The result: Ogilvy has increased its customer profitability — by making it easier to sell more services at a lower cost basis — and has measurably increased consumer loyalty, through better/more frequent updating during global campaigns. By demonstrating its nimbleness in client/partner collaboration, the firm also sharpened its competitive edge.

Mobile Strength

The enterprise social network also can build better communications within sales and marketing, a channel that doesn’t always flow properly.

Based on roles and geography, a socially-networked sales force can see specific information and be totally informed before they ever set foot in the client’s lobby.

Imagine a sales rep who’s on the move. She’s in a cab in New York with her boss, who’s asking questions about a specific client contact, Chris Porter, whom they’re en route to visit. Checking her Blackberry, she can instantly tap relevant documents and e-mail threads.

As the cab is still rolling, she’s able to return several vital pieces of helpful information (e.g., Mr. Porter, who has a high-school age son and who loves Tiger Woods, served as a project manager two years previously and has specific experience regarding what she and her boss are pitching) from within the organization’s internal social network.

In a world where marketing is putting things into system, before she goes to that customer she can also uncover valuable data such as whether the client’s just had a support incident, or whether her own firm’s European team is pitching something to this client, or maybe is delivering pricing tomorrow. From all this she and her boss can augment their pitch, or ‘stay in line’ and not say the wrong thing.

Tied to the company’s other great tools, the social network can provide very quick ways of finding information that normally would be lost. Also, the sales pro can, say, instantly locate a white paper to use as a leave-behind.

A worker can post a question via an e-mail alias to a set of experts who can not only rapidly post a response but can also publish a topical FAQ to the internal Wiki on the subject or to the related competitor or database files.

This grassroots approach can be powerful. If you win a client or otherwise have important internal news you can go edit the Wiki. Useful e-mail, press releases and marketing information that would previously sit in people’s hard drives or on some share drive can be pushed via RSS subscription or notifications that speed information to wherever the employee happens to be.

Kicking It, New School

Portals, instant messaging group discussions and tagging: This is not your father’s workplace. In point of fact, it’s more like your young nephew’s.

The old-school method of collaboration — steakhouses and three-martini lunches – is a long time gone.

Instead, in our casual chinos and our pencil skirts, today we’re grabbing our organic fare on the fly. From the checkout line, we’re checking email or texting. As we walk back to the office we’re pinging the company intranet to check out an executive blog or maybe subscribe to a company RSS feed.

From tapping the collective employee talent and knowledge base to creating groups around clients that very likely never would have existed otherwise, user-driven social networks let employees stand at the center of some pretty powerful technology.

It’s secure and private and not only does social networking behind the firewall save time and money in assembling the talent and knowledge necessary for a given endeavor, it has the potential to connect people and ideas such that work quality skyrockets, creativity soars and worker loyalty and involvement with the task or organization become a more enriching experience.