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CSR organizations are attempting to turn the current fashion for social networking websites to their commercial advantage.
At least four sites providing a forum for discussion of responsible business practice have been established in the past two months.
Each has presented itself as a CSR-focused version of Facebook, the three-year-old social networking website through which 40 million users communicate with friends and exchange information.
The most recent is ESC Network, established last month for people interested in ethical supply chain management (www.ethicalsupplychain.ning.com). Members can post messages on a public ‘wall’, set up blogs, or create an online mini-community of ‘friends’.
The network, which is free to join and use, was created by Nick Johnson, conference director at First Conferences, the UK-based publisher of Ethical Corporation, at the suggestion of delegates at its recent supply chain event in Amsterdam.
Other sites started recently also have a commercial edge. Actics (www.actics.com), set up by an Anglo-Danish company of social entrepreneurs headed by former JPMorgan economist Nicolai Peitersen, bills itself as ‘the ethical community for companies and individuals’. As well as offering blog space and discussion areas, it invites members to post details of their companies’ social and environmental activities for comment and evaluation. The site is free to join, but acts as a marketplace for Actics software, which provides ethical ratings of companies.
Another networking site, Change for Good (www.corporateculture.co.uk/changeforgood/index.php), was started last month by the CorporateCulture consultancy as ‘an arena in which companies and organizations can collaborate to become agents of social change’. It offers blogging, networking and discussion spaces and costs £125 ($258) a year.
The fourth site is JustMeans (www.justmeans.com), which calls itself a social networking area for ‘people and organizations to create value beyond the bottom line’. It was launched last month. Two of the founders, CEO Martin Smith and managing director Kevin Long, have previously set up ventures with the support of Ashoka, the not-for-profit that invests in social entrepreneurs.
Jane Madden, president of the US-based consultancy Social Sustainability International, who has joined one of the networks, suggested that company executives may sign up to some of the sites, despite their commercial overtones, to look for new contacts. ‘In general I’m not a big fan of social-networking sites as I’m too busy to keep up a personal page and I generally prefer more personal interaction,’ she told EP. ‘But I joined ESC because it has a specific focus and I’m particularly interested in connecting with European and Asian counterparts in this field.’
IBM is offering companies the chance to adopt its guidelines on how employees can blog in a socially responsible way. More than 25,000 of the company’s 330,000 staff are registered users of its internal blogging engine, BlogCentral. The guidelines, which have been developed over the past two years, cover confidentiality, personal security, etiquette and which subjects are likely to be unsuitable, among them ‘politics and religion’. Bloggers should always make it clear they speak for themselves and not for the company, IBM says.
At least four sites providing a forum for discussion of responsible business practice have been established in the past two months.
Each has presented itself as a CSR-focused version of Facebook, the three-year-old social networking website through which 40 million users communicate with friends and exchange information.
The most recent is ESC Network, established last month for people interested in ethical supply chain management (www.ethicalsupplychain.ning.com). Members can post messages on a public ‘wall’, set up blogs, or create an online mini-community of ‘friends’.
The network, which is free to join and use, was created by Nick Johnson, conference director at First Conferences, the UK-based publisher of Ethical Corporation, at the suggestion of delegates at its recent supply chain event in Amsterdam.
Other sites started recently also have a commercial edge. Actics (www.actics.com), set up by an Anglo-Danish company of social entrepreneurs headed by former JPMorgan economist Nicolai Peitersen, bills itself as ‘the ethical community for companies and individuals’. As well as offering blog space and discussion areas, it invites members to post details of their companies’ social and environmental activities for comment and evaluation. The site is free to join, but acts as a marketplace for Actics software, which provides ethical ratings of companies.
Another networking site, Change for Good (www.corporateculture.co.uk/changeforgood/index.php), was started last month by the CorporateCulture consultancy as ‘an arena in which companies and organizations can collaborate to become agents of social change’. It offers blogging, networking and discussion spaces and costs £125 ($258) a year.
The fourth site is JustMeans (www.justmeans.com), which calls itself a social networking area for ‘people and organizations to create value beyond the bottom line’. It was launched last month. Two of the founders, CEO Martin Smith and managing director Kevin Long, have previously set up ventures with the support of Ashoka, the not-for-profit that invests in social entrepreneurs.
Jane Madden, president of the US-based consultancy Social Sustainability International, who has joined one of the networks, suggested that company executives may sign up to some of the sites, despite their commercial overtones, to look for new contacts. ‘In general I’m not a big fan of social-networking sites as I’m too busy to keep up a personal page and I generally prefer more personal interaction,’ she told EP. ‘But I joined ESC because it has a specific focus and I’m particularly interested in connecting with European and Asian counterparts in this field.’
IBM is offering companies the chance to adopt its guidelines on how employees can blog in a socially responsible way. More than 25,000 of the company’s 330,000 staff are registered users of its internal blogging engine, BlogCentral. The guidelines, which have been developed over the past two years, cover confidentiality, personal security, etiquette and which subjects are likely to be unsuitable, among them ‘politics and religion’. Bloggers should always make it clear they speak for themselves and not for the company, IBM says. Super Featured
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