Social Networking: How Does IBM Do It?

IBM’s award?winning developerWorks site was established in 2000 as a technical resource repository for the company’s global development community. Designed to share knowledge and skills related to IBM products and other key technologies, it has been a solid success. The site attracts about 4 million unique visitors a month—including students, professionals, and developers from almost all the world’s countries—who search its library of 30,000 articles, demos, podcasts, and tutorials. developerWorks is available in eight languages, including Russian, Chinese, and Spanish, and about 70% of its visitors come from outside IBM.

My developerWorks, a social networking function, was added to the repository platform in 2009 to allow developers to connect, communicate, and collaborate on projects. Soon the network had added more than 600,000 user pro les as well as numerous blogs and forums. In addition to allowing established business, start?ups, and partners to collaborate, it has also helped users nd answers to support questions that would otherwise go to IBM’s call centers and help desks, thus saving the company an estimated $100 million.

Alice Chou, Director of IBM developerWorks, carefully monitored the number of My developerWorks pro les and the volume of traffic to the site. She looked at unique visitors, developer demographics, time spent on the site, and patterns of page views. She created a reward and recognition framework so that when users contributed a highly regarded article or blog post to the site, “they got the kudos they deserve.”

Question:

How does My developer Works leverage changes in the way people work? What are the positive and negative impacts – at individual and organizational levels? Support your response using relevant IS frameworks and models.