After a few interesting meetings I come to realize that the concept of collaboration and Enterprise Social Networking (ESN) can be confusing.

In my opinion, social networking tools should enable the negotiation of common interests between individuals. It is a system based on allowing each user to win by relating with others. The system works well because each user understands that tolerance is part of the reciprocal agreement; in Facebook I can see information submitted by my friends that may or may not be interesting to me.
 

ESN should work in the same way. That means that the the right question could be: What’s the common interest?

When I think about collaboration I imagine a set of tools that help me and my coworkers to share information in multiple ways. Tools that will enable each individual user to reach information. I see collaboration focused on information and ESN focused on results.

Obviously collaboration and ESN complement each other. 

Collaboration alone can cause adoption problems. Sharing information can be ineffective if only a few care about. 

When collaboration finds a purpose that answers a common interest then I believe becomes ESN. Enterprise Social Networking is not imitating FaceBook’s functionality it is implementing a new way of working focused on results and using collaboration tools.

ESN is based on social interactions with a purpose. A technological solution should only be part of the system.