20% of employees to use social media for business communication by 2014 says Gartner

The increasing use of social-networking-services, coupled with changing demographics and work styles, will lead 20% of employees to use social media as their business communications’ hub by 2014, according to Gartner.

In a presentation to CIOs and IT executives at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2010 in Cannes last week, Monica Basso, research vice president at Gartner highlighted the need for businesses to pursue innovative ways of working where communications and collaboration between employee groups will be critical to business success.

“Today, social paradigms are converging with e-mail, instant messaging and presence, creating new collaboration styles.” said Ms Basso, “however, a truly collaborative, effective and efficient workplace will not arise until organisations make these capabilities widely available and users become more comfortable with them. Technology is only an enabler; culture is a must for success.” she warned.

According to Gartner, companies such as Microsoft and IBM will add links to internal and external social networks from within e-mail clients and servers, making services such as contacts, calendars and tasks shareable across e-mail and social networks. By 2012, smartphones will feature social-enabled apps for contact lists, calendars and messaging clients.

“The rigid distinction between e-mail and social networks will erode,” Ms. Basso said. “E-mail will take on many social attributes, such as contact brokering, while social networks will develop richer e-mail capabilities.”