Why Use a Jet Engine When a Feather Will Do?

We enjoyed ourselves at the KM World Expo. Nice to get out of the office, meet companies working on their own social initiatives and see what other vendors are dong. In a conversation with one visitor to our booth, an interesting use case came up.

Connectbeam maintains a unique Social Profile for each employee. These profiles let people identify their skills, interests and projects, and include the information they have shared and created. Through out-of-the-box connectors and APIs, these Social Profiles can be incorporated into a number of enterprise applications, including portals. In addition, these Social Profiles are the basis for employee searches.

Our booth visitor was intrigued by this, but asked about this use case: Assume a number of people inside an organization include "Lotus Notes" in their list of skills. Some are help desk staffers others are architects and designers. What happens when employees forget their passwords, and search the company Social Profiles for "lotus notes"? Wouldn't a Lotus Notes developer get bombarded with requests for password resets?

We talked about a couple scenarios.

The Jet Engine Scenario

First, imagine a system where the Social Profiles tapped into an Issue Tracker system. This system records all requests for password resets, and which employees closed them out. From this, a list of Lotus Notes password reset gurus could be developed. The Social Profiles tap into this intelligence to identify who the go-to people are for password resets.

And it addresses the problem of the Lotus Notes developer who shouldn't be bombarded with password reset requests.

It would take a special algorithm built inside the Issue Tracker app to generate these results. The Issue Tracker would integrate to the Social Profiles, and update them for the new skills an employee has. The custom code and integration on the Issue Tracker app would need to be maintained and incorporated into any upgrades...

Yeah, pretty daunting isn't it?

The Feather Scenario

Or, there's a simpler way to tackle the problem. A Lotus Notes developer simply adds this to his profile:

** I do not reset Lotus Notes passwords. Please call x1234 for those requests. Thank you. **

Problem solved.

We love social software. Give people the tools, and you'll be amazed what they can come up with.

Comments

[more]

Problem solved.

[more]

It would take a special algorithm built inside the Issue Tracker app to generate these results. The Issue Tracker would integrate to the Social Profiles, and update them for the new skills an employee has. The custom code and integration on the Issue Tracker app would need to be maintained and incorporated into any upgrades...

[shoes]

Problem solved.

[sole]

We talked about a couple scenarios.

[Tory Burch]

Problem solved.

[okdunks]

Problem solved.