Analyzing collaborative networks emerging in Enterprise 2.0: the Taolin Platform

Coordination and networking among people working in the same organization is not a trivial activity: competences, positions, and the structural characteristics of the company together with communication preferences and group assets may prevent a positive flow of knowledge and decrease opportunities for collaboration. Technologies and, in particular, Web platforms have great potential to serve as a solution to these issues and to promote the spread of innovation and effectiveness inside the work environment. These platforms were usually referred to as Intranets and, more recently, as Enterprise2.0, a new keyword representing how some of the most important characteristics of Web2.0, mainly user participation, can be adopted inside organizations. The paper reports and analyses the ongoing creation of an open source Enterprise2.0 platform and its deployment inside Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK), a research institute with around 400 researchers and employees conducting studies in different research areas. Specifically, the usage and communication patterns in the platform is related with the activities of different kinds of users in the platform and their group relations. This part of the study implements social network analysis techniques and puts in evidence the relation between the main social activities, such as chatting and profile viewing, and community structure.