There are companies that have used social media tools for years. However, some companies are still relying on old and inefficient communication methods. Especially large companies have complicated processes and organizational structures, which may seem overwhelming for a new employee. Finding a right person is difficult via an incomplete personnel directory. Documents and presentations are stored on laptop hard drives, e-mail boxes, or document storage partitions that are only available for a small group of employees.

In order to make everyday work more efficient and support a culture of can-do (find it, don’t ask for it and edit-it yourself) companies should start to use the following three social media tools.

Diplopedia is a collection of department-wide wikis. Department wiki allows anyone in the department to instantly share his or her knowledge and receive support from others, no matter where individual employees are situated. It can be used to distribute various kinds of information such as workflows and past, present, and future projects. Diplopedia also provides a great way to find out what is going on in other departments.

ComBlog - a Company Blog – is an open discussion channel for all personnel regardless of rank or specialty. ComBlog is used for sharing thoughts and opinions of interesting things (e.g. emerging opportunities and threads related to company’s core business). It is also the main channel for company management to distribute relevant information for employees.

Vipectory is a visual personnel directory. It utilizes novel web technologies to provide a great interface to look at organization charts and employee details. In addition, employees can add more information of themselves (e.g. competence areas, work tasks, past projects). This information is used to create a visualization that shows employee’s closest colleagues and links to other teams and departments. Vipectory has also a free text search that provides an efficient way to find the right people.