Implementation of Social Business Concept at the HFU

7/25/2019 Implementation of Social Business Concept at the HFU

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Implementation of

'Social Business Concept'

at the HFU

Bachelor-Thesis

By: - Raman Paneru

Matriculation No. 243426, IBM -7

[email protected]

Second Supervisor:

Prof. Dr. Frank Kramer

First Supervisor:

Prof. Dr. Daniel Cerquera


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"I hereby certify that this thesis is my own work and contains no material that has been

submitted previously, in whole or in part, in respect of any other academic award or any other

degree. To the best of my knowledge all used sources, information and quotations are

referenced as such."

____________

Signature, date


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Acknowledgement

I would firstly like to thank Prof. Cerquera and Prof. Krammer for accepting my proposal and

being my thesis supervisors. I too would also like to thank all the HFU staffs and students

those who contributed to make this thesis complete. I too would like to thank lati, my friends

and family for their support throughout my studies.

This was a great opportunity to understand how a research work is done. I have learnt a lot

about the topic and also about the way a research work is done. As I keep writing articles for

newspapers and my blog, I thought this would be the easiest part in my whole study.

However, it was the most difficult part where I was all by myself and had to read extensively

from all sorts of sources. It certainly has helped me to grow and learn some important

lessons.

Lastly, I would like to declare that the whole research work presented here is my personal

work. The information I have included are quoted or at least their sources are mentioned as

foot notes in every page. Moreover, I have listed all the sources in bibliography section. I too

have included all the important and relevant e-mails, the questionnaire used, etc in the

appendix section.


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Abstract

"Social Business Concept" is a concept of blending innovation in the field of social media in

Business. This thesis aims in establishing an opinion that the "Social Business Concept" is

very much relevant for the HFU just like for other business organizations . In this thesis,

one can get the basic understanding of the concept, its origin and development as well as

some case studies about the successful implementation. This thesis further shows the

initiatives that the HFU has taken in the direction and the progresses made so far.

Furthermore, it suggests some steps that are to be taken to make further improvements in the

direction of establishing the HFU as a well-connected organization.

The theories presented in the thesis and conclusion drawn by this thesis is based on the

various literature reviews, e-mail correspondences with the HFU staffs and online survey

where the students studying at the HFU in different faculties participated.


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Table of ContentsAcknowledgement .................................................................................................................................. 3

Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 4

1. Introduction......................................................................................................................................... 6

2. Defining "Social Business Concept".................................................................................................. 7

2.1 Social World................................................................................................................................. 7

2.1.1 History of Social Media Platform........................................................................................ 10

2.1.2 History of Instant Messenger............................................................................................... 12

2.2 Social Business........................................................................................................................... 15

2.3 Advantages and Challenges of Social Business.......................................................................... 21

A. Advantages of Social Business Concept.................................................................................. 21

B. Challenges of Implementation of Social Business Concept..................................................... 26

2.4 Measures to Face the Challenges and Mitigate Risks ................................................................. 30

2.5 Success Story of Implementation of Social Business Concept................................................... 34

3. Hochschule Furtwangen University.................................................................................................. 36

3.1. Introduction................................................................................................................................ 36

3.2. HFU in Numbers........................................................................................................................ 37

4. Communication within the HFU ........................................................................................................ 38

4.1. Study Portal ................................................................................................................................ 38

4.2 Webmail ...................................................................................................................................... 39

4.3 Felix ............................................................................................................................................. 39

5. The HFU with the Outside World ...................................................................................................... 46

5.1 The HFU Website ........................................................................................................................ 47

5.2 The HFU in Social Media ............................................................................................................. 48

6. Implementation of 'Social Business Concept' at the HFU ................................................................. 52

6. 1. Survey Results ........................................................................................................................... 53

6. 2. The HFU on Implementation of Social Business Concept ......................................................... 58

7. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 60

8. Appendix ........................................................................................................................................... 64

9. Bibliography ...................................................................................................................................... 69


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1. Introduction

This thesis aims in presenting the available definition of "Social Business Concept" and its

constituents such as enterprise social network and social media appearances of an

organization through literature reviews and then re-defining it for the context of the HFU.

Additionally, it shows the current progress made by the HFU to implement the "Social

Business Concept". Furthermore, the thesis suggests some steps that can be taken into

consideration to establish the HFU as a well-connected organization.

There are altogether 9 chapters including introduction, appendix, and bibliography. The

chapter 2 explains the whole theoretical aspects of "Social Business Concept", history and

development of its constituents such as social networking and instant messaging and how it

has been introduced to the business world. The chapter 3 introduces the HFU with its short

history and further presents the statistics related to the HFU. The chapter 4 and 5 present the

ways HFU is connected to the inside and the outside world via its website, learning platform,

social media fan pages and so on. The chapter 6 includes a survey results to further support

the idea that the communication culture has changed and how the HFU can use this fact to

shape its mode of communication. The participants of this survey were the HFU students

enrolled in different faculties at the HFU. This chapter further includes the attitudes of the

HFU staffs in implementing the "Social Business Concept" at the HFU. The chapter 7

concludes the whole thesis with some recommendation on successful 'implementation of the

"Social Business Concept" at the HFU'

The theoretical concept regarding the "Social Business Concept" is backed up via the

literature reviews accessed online in EBSCO-Host. Due to the lack of published resources at

local libraries the thesis had to be based on the online resources in many cases. The report onthe progresses so far made by the HFU in the direction of being a "social business" is based

on the information published in the HFU website, e-mail correspondence with the HFU

staffs, social media fan pages and an online survey where the HFU students enrolled in

different faculties participated.


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2. Defining "Social Business Concept"

"Social Business Concept" is not as new as it might seem but is known to people under

different names such as Enterprise 2.0 or some other. It is a concept of blending social media

innovation in the business via the use of corporate/enterprise social networks or the fan pages

in social media. The readers should not confuse the term "Social Business" with a similar

term meaning socially responsible business, a business that understands its 'corporate social

responsibility'. It is rather the term used specifically by Bosch for a well-connected business

or 'Enterprise 2.0' as some has defined it. Here in this thesis, the term is rather broadened and

has been presented in the context of the HFU.

2.1 Social World

On 25th April, 2015, there was a great earthquake in Nepal. People started posting different

statuses, pictures and videos in Facebook and everyone could know about it within the hour.

The information was shared so quickly that people started to join hand in hand to support

their family back in home. When telephones, electricity, transport, etc. were not functioning

properly back in Nepal, people outside Nepal started networking with their friends and

collecting all the possible helps they could. Phone calls were not working but Social Media

and instant messengers became the best alternative to contact each other. Viber and Skype

offered free calls to Nepal from abroad.

Facebook itself started a campaign to raise fund for the earthquake victims of Nepal and was

able to collect 17 million USD.

"After two major earthquakes devastated Nepal in April and May, more than 770,000 people

from 175 countries around the world donated over USD 15 million to support the

International Medical Corps relief effort. Facebook donated an additional USD 2 million to

local recovery efforts. These donations have supported International Medical Corps' first-

response and ongoing relief efforts. We'd like to thank the Facebook community for your

contributions and show you how your donations are helping the people of Nepal."1

1https://www.facebook.com/nepalearthquakesupport (accessed November, 2015)


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During studies at the HFU, students have to do lots of presentation and project works with in

class. It needed frequent communication and sharing of information. To meet each team

member is somehow difficult as everyone have classes and work at different time. Social

media is the answer to the problem. Students make groups in viber, whatsapp or Facebook

where they continuously communicated to each other. Some of them also use Skype during

exam for preparation.

These days when you work in a small business, you are invited to a small WhatsApp group or

a Viber group to get information about works or changes at your workplace. Even the

dormitories have such groups to stay in touch with each other in the dormitory. Cleaning

schedules or appointments are all communicated via WhatsApp.

Recently, when there was terrorist attack in Paris, many Facebook users from all around the

globe showed their concern by using French-flags filter on their profile pictures. This trend

was there also during pride day celebration. When US Supreme Court's decision made same

sex marriage as an individual right on June 26, 2015, an overwhelming 26 million Facebook

users from all over the world used rainbow flag filter in its support. 2

These are few among many examples of social media usage in different aspects of life.

Sharing information and staying connected has become much easier with the help of socialmedia. It has made world a very small place. One can know about what's happening in one

part of the world in other part of the world in no time.

Social media has encouraged user generated content's concept. This has increased the amount

of information available to us. And it has also reduced the cost of getting information.

Traditional means of communication like telephone and e-mails are seldom used in regular

communications. It is much easier to send text over some instant messenger than to write an

email or to make a call. The invention of Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Viber, Whatsapp, etc has

changed the way people communicate with each. Different social media have become a part

of our life. Communication through Social media has become 21st century's culture of

communication. Mostly among new generation, it is very much popular. Social Media has

2Caltlin Dewey. More than 26 Million People have...; June 29, 2015;

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/06/29/more-than-26-million-people-have-changed-their-facebook-picture-to-a-rainbow-flag-heres-why-that-matters/ (accessed November 2015)


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also become platform for sharing information. Different newspapers and electronic media

have their presence in social media. It has become way of protesting against the government

or any other higher authority. Social media has become a mean of collecting funds for

different projects. These days, one can do everything in social media. Hence, the number of

users for Social Medias is increasing day by day.

The following picture shows users categorized according to the Social Media as in January,

2015. As per the graph below, Facebook seems to be the largest Social Media with widest

reach to the 1,3 billion population. Facebook is followed by QQ which is Chinese version of

Facebook. As Facebook is banned in China, it is rarely used there. Some people however use

proxy application to use Facebook even in China. WhatsApp seems to be the biggest Instant

messenger with 600 million users. It is followed by messenger, which is application to send

messages to Facebook friends. Messenger is followed by Wechat which is again a Chinese

Instant Messenger. The micro-blogging site Twitter ranks in 10th position with more than

250 million users.

Fig.1: Leading Social Networks3

3Terrence. 5 Social Media Trends For 2015 That All Social Media Marketers Should Know About; January 26,

2015; http://www.hashmeta.com/blog/5-social-media-trends-for-2015-that-all-social-media-marketers-should-know-about/ (accessed November, 2015)


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The present picture of usage of Social Media Platform had various stages of adoption. It took

almost two decades for Social Media platform to be part of our daily life and to grow as

modern day communication culture. This whole history can be divided in two sections:

2.1.1 History of Social Media Platform4

'According to Rogers' (1962) work Diffusion of Innovation the adopters of new technologies

are categorized into five groups. The first 2.5% of users are termed as innovators. They are

the early group of users of any new technology. At this phase of adoption the technology

remains in its testing phase. The next 13.5% are called early adopters. This group of adopters

is the risk taker and the ones willing to try new stuffs. They are then followed by the next

34% of the early majority and the next 34% of late majority. The first 34% are the major

influence creator in the market. The late majority is a crowd that lets first majority to try and

give some feedback. The remaining are the ones that do not like changes or the ones who

adopt the changes really late. This is the later 16% of the users group. They are termed as

laggards due to their lack of excitement toward the technology and their nature of adopting

technology really late.

Social Media Platforms such as Facebook and MySpace had these categories of users. This

process took 15 to 20 years for them as well. Some Social Media Platform such as Hi5 died

in the process due to lack of their innovativeness and limited users. Facebook however is

growing day by day and is introducing innovative ways of communicating for its user every

time. The recent change in Facebook includes the ability to keep videos as profile picture

(now it might be called profile video instead of profile picture)

Social Media Platform started appearing since late 90s with the sites such as

SixDegreees.com. The users witnessing these social platforms and adopting them are

categorized as innovators. They existed till 2003. Early adopters began using Public Social

Network Platforms such as MySpace, LinkedIn, and Facebook making such platforms widely

successful by 2005. Public Social Network Platforms were pushed to the critical masses by

4Cardon & Marschal; June 1, 2015; The Hype and Reality of Social Media Use for Work Collaboration and Team

Communication; Journal of Business Communication;

http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=9e3a9573-1ff6-4728-8512-971dbfb29b4f%40sessionmgr4001&vid=0&hid=4206 (accessed Jan 2016)


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early majority from 2005 to 2009. From 2009 till 2012, the late majority adopted Public

Social Network Platforms. The users adopting Public Social Network Platform are the

laggard. The following picture shows the users of Public Social Networking Platforms

categorically.

Fig.2: The categorical adoption of Public Social Networking Platform5

5Cardon & Marschal; June 1, 2015; The Hype and Reality of Social Media Use for Work Collaboration and Team

Communication; Journal of Business Communication;

http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=9e3a9573-1ff6-4728-8512-971dbfb29b4f%40sessionmgr4001&vid=0&hid=4206 (accessed Jan 2016)


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2.1.2 History of Instant Messenger6

It might seem that instant messaging is a newer concept however it came into existence

earlier than the Social Media Platforms. To be more precise, it was there even before the

existence of World Wide Web.

The first system that allowed humans to send text based messages (similar to emails and

instant messages these days) came into existence in mid 60s. It was called Compatible Time-

Sharing System (CTSS). Created at MIT's (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), it

allowed 30 users to get into the system at once and send messages to each other. This is so far

the oldest form of what we now know as instant messaging. This was then followed by many

similar services. However, they were all limited within the research institute and computerlab to exchange information regarding to the current researches.

America Online (AOL) previously known as Q-Link (Quantum Link) released in 1982 by

Commodore International is one of the oldest Instant Messenger outside research lab. It

allowed the Commodore 64 PC users to send texts through its intranet. Later on in 1996, ICQ

launched by Mirabilis, was able to connect broader market of online users. It was invented by

an Israeli Company. This system allowed users to send messages to more than one person at a

time, transfer files, search other users and do more using ICQ.

AOL later acquired ICQ in 1998 and sold it again in 2010. In late 90s AOL launched yet

another Instant Messenger called AIM. It dominated the Instant Messaging market by 2005.

It has altogether 53 million users from around the world.

Yahoo!Messenger is another successful Instant Messenger from the past days. It chat rooms

and address books similar to that of AOL. It also included smiley and ability to send pictures

in its later verson. Lately, it started supporting video calls as well.

Windows Live Messenger is also one of the popular Instant Messenger from earlier days. It

was popularly known MSN. It exists till date and is now. However, like Yahoo!Messenger

and MSN are the Instant Messenger used by old school that existed before the smartphone

generation. These Instant Messengers were mostly used in PCs.

6

Petronzio; Oct 25, 2012; A Brief History of Instant Messaging; http://mashable.com/2012/10/25/instant-messaging-history/#5gWlijyLzEq9 (accessed Jan 2015)


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Fig. 3: A Quick Picture of

History of Social Media7

After the arrival of

Smart-phones and touch

screen, fancier Instant

Messenger came into

existence. Instant Messenger

like Yahoo!Messenger and

MSN were connected to the

respective email accounts

however, current days

Instant Messenger are more

often connected to the phone

numbers. Whatsapp,

Facebook Messenger, Viber,

Snapchat, Skype are the

popular name now a days in

market.

The difference between

emails and instant messaging

is that instant messaging

supports, live chat whereas

email is almost one way

communication. Hence, it is

quicker to communicate

through instant messaging.

Its user friendly interface is

the other reason why it

became popular among

people in later days.

7

Bennet. July 4, 2013; A Brif History of Social Medial (1969- 2012) [Infographic];http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/social-media-1969-2012/487353 (accessed Jan 2015)


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2.2 Social Business

The change in communication culture in general life has also changed the way businesses

work. Now a day, many business organizations are creating social network within theorganization to make communication within the organization more efficient in terms of time,

cost and effectiveness. This has favored those businesses to great extent. Similarly, they are

using social media to advertise their product and to remain in touch with their customers and

stakeholders.

Social Business is a term used by Bosch for well connected business. "By Social Business,

we mean everything that a highly connected company does. Once cooperation,

communication, and the creation and further development of ideas are being improved or

even made possible in the first place through networking, we are conducting Social Business

successfully. This is the basis of our motto: CooperateCommunicateCreate."8

Enterprise 2.0 is other name for a business organization that has implemented Social Business

Concept. The term was coined by Andrew P. McAfee and according to him, "Enterprise 2.0

is the use of emergent social software platforms, or ESSPs, by an organization to pursue its

goals."9To make it simple, Enterprise 2.0 is an attempt to create a well collaborated business

by using different networking platform that enables each and every employee to stay

connected to each other. There are similar other terms that define use of Social Media or say

web 2.0 technologies in an enterprise. Web 2.0, "a capacity for high user engagement,

intellectual rigor, frequent updating, and collective knowledge sharing based on an

underlying technological infrastructure of blogs, wikis, podcasts, photosharing, RSS feeds,

social bookmarks, and the like (O'Reilly, 2005; Anderson, 2007)" 10 , thus has been

incorporated by the businesses in different names such as Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Social

Network, Corporate Social Network, Public Social Networking Platforms, and so on with

similar aims of being more and more connected.

8Social Business Made Easy, Bosch (accessed September, 2015)

9McAfee; November 1, 2009, Shattering the Myths About Enterprise 2.0; Harvard Business Review;

http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=dad27d38-9e69-4bdd-bcde-

fd1fba37c158%40sessionmgr4005&vid=0&hid=4206 (accessed Jan 2016)

10

Fahser-Herro & Steinkuehler; Winter 2009-10; Web 2.0 Literacy and Secondary Teacher Education; Journalof Computing in Teacher Education; http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ907119.pdf (accessed Jan 2016)


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Bosch aims at creating a well connected enterprise with the help of its social networking

platform in its Intranet and they call it as Bosch Connect. It is a platform where every Bosch

employees has access to. They can create and manage their profile, create and follow

communities, wikis, forums, etc depending on the need of the department they work in. It

basically assures two way communications which is transparent for all. One can also create

events and invite the participants in it. These events can also be included in individual

calendars making it easy to remember.

This trend of using social networks within the firm is being common these days. According to

the research carried out by Frost & Sullivan, there were already 208 million subscribers of

full-suite enterprise social network in 2013. 11 The social networks used by firms to

communicate within the company are generally termed as Enterprise Social Networks or

ESNs in short. However, it has company specific terms as well. As mentioned above, Bosch

Connect is an Enterprise Social Network at Bosch. Enterprise Social Networks are sometimes

even called as Corporate Social Networks. However, this term is not very popular.

"Enterprise social networking focuses on the use of online social networks or social relations

among people who share business interests and/or activities.12Enterprise Social Networking

Platforms (ESNPs), Enterprise Social Networks (ESNs), Corporate Social Networks (CSNs),

Social Software, or Social tools or whatever they are referred as, they basically are theplatform that provide opportunities to collaborate and communicate within the business with

the tools such as blogs, microblogs, wikis, forums, instant chat and messaging, file sharing,

opinion polls, bookmarks and RSS feeds.

Deloitte predicts over 90% of Fortune 500 companies will have partially or fully

implemented an enterprise social network by the end of 2013.13This shows how popular

these Enterprise Social Networks have become these days. There are many software

companies that offer such platforms. Here's a table showing ten business targeted social

networks and companies adopting them.

11June 1, 2014; Social Networking Offers Increased Agility; CRM Magazine;

http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=a10727ea-f3eb-4ee0-9ed8-

237d5e37e91b%40sessionmgr4001&vid=0&hid=4206 (accessed Jan 2016)

12Wikipedia. Enterprise Social Networking; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_social_networking

(accessed November, 2015)

13 Fee. July 14, 2013. 10 Enterprise Networks to Improve Company Communication;

http://mashable.com/2013/06/14/enterprise-social-networks/#LMwb.CP55Gqb (accessed November 2015)
http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_GX/global/industries/technology-media-telecommunications/tmt-predictions-2013/tmt-predictions-2013-technology/8925e716bfcdb310VgnVCM3000003456f70aRCRD.htm#.UbnsNvmR98Ehttp://www.deloitte.com/view/en_GX/global/industries/technology-media-telecommunications/tmt-predictions-2013/tmt-predictions-2013-technology/8925e716bfcdb310VgnVCM3000003456f70aRCRD.htm#.UbnsNvmR98E


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Enterprise Social Networks Companies That Use

Tibbr Macy's, iHealth and InterPortPolice

Jive T-Mobile, PWC, UBM and Critical Mass

Yammer Shell, 7-Eleven and Razorfish

Social Cast Nokia, Humana and SAS

Convo The Next Web, TechCrunch and the Oxford

Leadership Academy

Kaltura Best Buy, Coldwell Banker and Texas Instruments

Chatter GE, Commonwelth Bank and NBC Universal

Zyncro Retail and finance to Insurance companies and

NGO sectors

Socialtext Blue Man Group, SouthEastern and Getty Images

Connections IBM doesn't name the companies that use

Connections, but it does mention a few clients: "a

leading health insurance network with millions of

members and more than 3,000 employees," "a

training institute for continuing education with over

100,000 members," and "the world's largest

suppliers of building materials, with over 12,000

employees worldwide."

Table 1: List of Enterprise Social Networks and their Users14

14

Fee. July 14, 2013. 10 Enterprise Networks to Improve Company Communication;http://mashable.com/2013/06/14/enterprise-social-networks/#LMwb.CP55Gqb (accessed November 2015)


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Social media has not just encouraged businesses to use Enterprise Social Networks within

their companies but also to be present in trendy Social Medias such as Facebook, Instagram,

Youtube, etc. to maintain regular interactions with their customers. Social Media Marketing

is also one of the major implementation of the innovations made in the fields of Social Media

in business sector. Hence from a small restaurant to a big brand, all have started using

Social Media platform for their marketing and to maintain regular interaction with the

customers.

H&M, a clothing brand, uses Instagram (a social media where people share instant images) to

advertise its recent collection at stores. It has 11.7 million followers alone in Instagram. It

receives wide audience of its new clothing and products at stores and feedback via Instagram.

Similarly it has 25.3 million likes on its facebook page.15

Hard discount stores such as Aldi and Lidl too have their facebook page which they use to

continuously interact with their customers. Normally, hard discounters believe in mouth to

mouth advertisement. However, their presence on social media shows that they have adopted

Lidl Germany has 1.9 million likes in its Facebook page.16 It publishes posts regarding its

new products available at stores and offers available. Peoples query regarding products and

services are answered instantly. The Facebook has made it possible for firms to verify their

page. If the responses from admin are quick enough they get an active blue check mark

meaning that the page is active. Aldi and Lidl are in Instagram as well.

Moreover, Zara, Deichman, IKEA, McDonalds, Bosch, Harvard University, etc all have their

active Facebook pages through which they are connected to millions of clients. Not just the

big names, there are over 45 million Facebook pages representing small and medium size

businesses around the world. The image below shows updated statistics on Facebook

community.

15H&M Clothing (Facebook Page); https://www.facebook.com/hmdeutschland/?fref=ts (accessed December,

2015)

16Lidl: Food & Grocery(Facebook Page); https://www.facebook.com/Lidl/?fref=ts (accessed December, 2015)


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Fig 3: Facebook Updates17

41% of small business based on USA use Facebook page. 18As it doesn't cost anything at all

to create a page for a business in Facebook, it is much popular among the small businesses as

they have very little budget for marketing. Similarly, it helps people to find about business

online. These days most of the people using smart-phones have access to internet. As

mentioned in the Hubspots website, a study suggested that '61% of global internet-users

research products online. (Interconnected World: Shopping and Personal Finance, 2012)'19

Hence, being social makes a business available in online searches. People can easily find out

about the businesses, and maintain a contact with the business. Being social also helps to

create brand awareness among the people. Facebook being the largest social networking site

existing in the world, it's a good platform to advertise the businesses. Therefore, the numbers

of Facebook pages representing brands, companies, artists are increasing day by day. As

anyone can open page in Facebook, it has made it possible for the business to verify their

pages. According to their activities in Facebook and responsiveness, the verified icon toggles

17Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook Page);

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10102457977071041&set=a.529237706231.2034669.4&type=3&

theater (accessed December 2015)

18Craig Smith Nov 15, 2015. By the Numbers: 90 Amazing Facebook Page Statistics;

http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/facebook-page-statistics (accessed December 2015)

19

The Ultimate List of Marketing Statistics; http://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics (accessed December2015)


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its colour. A white check-mark in blue coloured dot represents an active verified page of a

company with quick responsiveness whereas a grey turned verified sign means that the

messages sent to the page would not be replied quickly enough or say the responsiveness of

the page is not that good.


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2.3 Advantages and Challenges of Social Business

Social Business concept has been rapidly adopted by businesses all around the world.

Certainly, these adoptions are based on the advantages of making a business social. Effective

communication in any business is helpful to achieve desired goal of a business. Social

Business Concept assures that part and not only the interaction between the employees but

also with the clients who care about the business. Social Business Concept also helps to

create a brand image of a business. However, there are some challenges to it.

A. Advantages of Social Business Concept

Social Business Concept emphasizes use of social media to communicate outside the business

and an Enterprise Social Network to communicate and collaborate within the business.

Hence, the advantage of this concept can be divided in two major parts:

i . Advantages of Social Media Pr esence

Social media has changed traditional one way communication through radio & tv

broadcastings, newspaper advertisements, posters & banners, etc. In old days, consumers had

no way to interact with the businesses or even if they had it was way more time consuming

and stressful. This has been all changed by social media. Now anyone can post about their

experience while using some product in facebook or twitter and simply put a hashtag to pull

attention of the company. The other way can be to go to Brand (fan) page of a company and

send a message or post a comment. Similarly it has also given advantage to business to

dismiss the rumours about their products or company being spread among their clients. The

advantages of use of social media for a business are as follows: 20

a. Establishes presence among the customers and general people with the help of Branded

"Fan" pages. It's easy to create Facebook pages or Youtube channel for any business. It

20Merill, Latham, Santalesa, & Navetta; 2011; Social Media: The Business Benefits May Be Enormous, But Can

the Risks- Reputational, Legal, Operational- Be Mitigated; http://www.acegroup.com/us-en/assets/ace-progress-report-social-media.pdf (accessed November, 2015)


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requires effort to continuously post on behalf of an organization. With that little effort, a

business can maintain its presence among its consumers or even wider audience.

b. Helps to spread authorized opinion regarding false rumours or negative comments in the

market. Social media makes it easy to spread any negative or positive thing in no time.

Companies can use this wider reach to make authorized statement to fight against any false

claim. The alternative can be a press conference and news based on that conference. If we

compare the cost and effort for these two alternatives, we can easily accept the fact that social

media is way more cheaper, convenient and effective way to voice the official opinion of a

business.

c. Helps to disclose public information to bigger mass. Twitter posts or Facebook post reach

many audiences these days than the publication in newspaper. The time it takes to reach this

greater mass is just few seconds. Even Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg choose social media

post to update about their projects these days. Bill Gates even writes blog post mostly to

inform about the activities of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Mark Zuckerberg uses his

own facebook page to update company progress and his upcoming projects.

d. Helps to find out potential candidate for vacant posts via social sites like LinkedIn, Xing,

Step-stone, etc. There are many social networking sites used by graduates and students these

days to be seen by their potential employers. In one hand, it serves the students to present

themselves better in the job market and on the other hand it helps companies to find out best

candidate available to them in least price and effort. Social Media seems to offer the win-win

service for both.

e. Helps to get quicker feedback from the consumers. People post comments regarding the

restaurant they visited or a hotel room they booked in sites like Tripadvisor which helps

business to improve on regular basis. Even facebook reviews are easier way to gather

consumers voices regarding the service customers are getting.


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f. Social Medias are also helpful in advertising contests or events, or any promotions being

offered by a business. These things help consumers to stay with the business. Even the hard

discounters such as Lidl or fast food restaurant McDonald do these stuffs.

Mondelez International, a snack and food company experimented by using social

media marketing in isolation. It spent all its advertisement budget to promote its valnilla

wafers: Nilla. VaynerMedia that took charge of their social media advertising created

targeted advertisemts for mothers under the campaign called "Momism". The result was that

Nilla Wafers Facebookpage like increased by more than 340 thousand. Moreover the sales

went up by 9 percent in comparison to the same period in previous year (2012). 21

21 Segal. Nov2, 2013. Riding the Hashtag in Social Media Marketing;

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/technology/riding-the-hashtag-in-social-media-marketing.html?_r=0(accessed November 2015)
https://www.facebook.com/nillawafershttps://www.facebook.com/nillawafers


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i i. Advantages of Enterpr ise Social Network

Fig 4: Before and after the use of Enterprise Social Network22

The above picture is the simplest explanation of what Enterprise Social Network can deliver

to a business. ESN basically organizes communication within the business and assures its

effectiveness. It avoids bureaucratic movement of information and thus saves time as well. It

helps to focus everyone to the goal of a business. It makes sharing of information easy via

blogs and wikis. It also helps to conduct meeting among the employees seated far away from

each other with the help of Web Conferencing tools, thus saving time and cost of travelling.

Here are some more advantages of ESNs or say implementation of Social Business

Concept:23

a. Connect & Engage

The main purpose of ESNs is to create a network to unite people and help them focus in one

goal. To serve this purpose, ESNs include various quicker and efficient way of staying in

touch of one another. Similar to Social Media like Facebook, you are able to post statuses,

22https://www.exoplatform.com/lp/collaboration-

software?utm_content=56809852552&utm_term=social%20collaboration%20software&utm_campaign=social-

collaboration&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=Google&gclid=CjwKEAiA7_OzBRDA8OfT3orp51oSJACVqslIsjbiCiE_7Cyr84hu

EHrXC_hwZ1a77LC2AwCq4z2IKhoCVY7w_wcB (accessed December 2015)

23http://socialcast.com/#free-signup (accessed December 2015)


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send messages and like and share others posts. Integration of tools like Business Skype helps

in video conferencing with employees seated in different part of the world. Similarly the web

conferencing tools help to conduct trainings at global level. The forums available in ESNs

can help questions answered by related person in real time on any device. The communities

created can bind people related to one field in one place and also makes it easy to message all

members at once. The blogs can be used to update news regarding the company or a

department to be specific. Thus one of the major advantages of ESNs or Social Business

Concept in general is to assure efficient communication within the company and also to keep

employees engaged.

b. Work Smarter

ESNs help to work smarter. It helps to manage every 'document, deadline, and deliverables'.

Tools such as shared calendars make it easy to organize meetings. Certain appointments can

be created as events which are later reminded by the outlook. Wikis full of information help

anyone to reach desired information in few clicks without bothering anyone. Hence, it can

also work as a self-help tool along with a tool that encourages team-work.

c. Innovate Faster

Smart people use their brain and the smarter ones use their and the others brain that is

available to them. Steve jobs used Steve Wozniaks techno-mind to build one of the most

innovative companies in the world: Apple. A common platform for all the employees can

make it possible to "tap into the imaginations and ingenuity of every employee to drive your

business forward." Not only that, there are possibilities of creating "ideation blogs" specially

used for genuine ideas of employees. These blogs are later judged by others and chosen asbest idea and later implemented.

d. Centralize

ESNs help to gather all the information, projects and people in one place. Thus enhancing the

productivity and ease in accessing information. It also helps in supervision and control of

activities being conducted within the business.


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B. Challenges of Implementation of Social Business Concept

Every invention has two way effects. They don't only bring advantages but makes us to face

new challenges and risks. Some of the challenges can be avoided by careful uses or by

adopting some precautions while others are unavoidable. However, it helps to face the

problem well if we know the problem well. Similar to the advantages of Implementation of

Social Business Concept, the risks or challenges can also be categorized in two categories:

i . Chall enges and r isks associated to the use of Social Media24

It's very easy to spread information in Social Medias. Information can be positive and

negative. Hence, it is very essential to understand this power of social media and act very

cautiously. If there are any negative rumours, it takes no time to reach wider audience and

blemish the company's image. Similarly, any kind of mishandling of intellectual property

might lead to legal troubles. There are risks of being hacked as well. Sometimes using social

media might cause unintentional download of malware that might infect whole company's

computer in network. This might cause great loss to the company. Therefore, the challenges

and risks associated to the use of Social Media by a company can be categorized into three

areas: reputational, legal, and operational.

a. Reputational Risks

Any bad behaviour by an employee or posting of awkward information in public platform

like "Fan" page on Facebook can cause reputational damage to the company. Any impolite

word toward a company, client, management or coworker can cause similar damage to the

company. Social media helps to earn reputation in short time. And is similar manner it might

also causes to lose reputation of the company. As quoted by Walter, Warren Buffet Said, "It

24Merill, Latham, Santalesa, & Navetta; 2011. Social Media: The Business Benefits May Be Enormous, But

Can the Risks- Reputational, Legal, Operational- Be Mitigated; http://www.acegroup.com/us-en/assets/ace-

progress-report-social-media.pdf (accessed December, 2015)


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takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll

do things differently."25

b. Legal Risks

Social media activities might sometime lead in breaching of security. If some harmful

applications are downloaded while using social media or if some wrong clicks on spams or

similar links are made, it might infect companies computer causing loose of sensitive data.

This might sometime put company into legal trouble. Similarly, use of intellectual property in

company "Fan" page by any employee without consent with the owner of such property

might cause company to pay huge amount of fine or face a legal trial. If the employees

discuss some confidential trade secrets that a company is legally bound to protect, it might

put the company in trouble.

c. Operational Risks

During the use of social media at company's networked computer might sometime cause a

very big risk. If a virus or any malware is downloaded in one computer in such a network, it

infects all other computers in the network. Such unintentional activity might cause company

to lose important data saved in company's computer.

Sometimes frauds in social media replicate company's page and trick client to provide their

confidential information or download some malware. This might cause legal problem as the

client might fire a case against the company as it is company's responsibility to make sure

that no one else is misusing company's name to trick other and to warn it's client about such

possible mishap.

25Walter. Nov 12, 2013; 10 Tips for Reputation And Crisis Management in the Digital World;

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ekaterinawalter/2013/11/12/10-tips-for-reputation-and-crisis-management-in-the-digital-world/ (accessed December 2015)


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i i . Challenges and risks associated to the use of Corporate (Enterpr ise) Social Network

Similar to the risks and challenges associated to the use of social media by a company, there

are some risks associated with the use of Enterprise Social Networks as well. If the

implementation part doesn't go that well, company might end up bearing extra expenses for

no good reason. It can be due to less motivated staffs or by management that is not so eager

about the use of ESNs. Due to this reason there are some sad survey results regarding the use

of ESNs and other collaboration platforms.

Fig 5: Status of Use of Corporate Social Networks in Different Companies26

In the figure above it is seen that around 40% of the companies fail to reap the advantage of

Corporate Social Network. They have similar problem of employees being de-motivated

toward the use of Corporate Social Networks and Collaborative Platforms. Corporate Social

Network cost money to the company and if it is not used by employees and adding to cost

without delivering any positive results, the companies would certainly plan to deploy them.

Around 20% of the companies seemed to have reached the decision of deploying Enterprise

Social Networks and Collaborative Platforms.

26

LI. April 7, 2015. Why No One Uses the Corporate Social Network ; https://hbr.org/2015/04/why-no-one-uses-the-corporate-social-network (accessed December 2015)


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Hence, the biggest risk of using Enterprise Social Network or any sort of Corporate Social

Network is not being able to take advantage from them and reach the decision of deploying

them. The other risks are similar to that of Social Media uses. It is a little safer as it is mostly

limited to the company employee so there is no presence of any party from outside the

company. However, it certainly makes it easy to motivate or de-motivate the employees of a

company. A positive message posted in company's Enterprise Social Network might give

positive vibes to all the employees. Similarly, a negative message posted will have negative

impact on all the employees throughout the company network.

Loss of interest in employees to use Corporate Social Network is other challenge for a

company that might make it difficult for the company to take advantage from this world

changing technology. The reason why the employee might lose interest in use of Corporate

Social Network has to do with change resistance too. Most of us like to do the stuffs we are

used to do. If the employees are told to communicate via Corporate Social Networks and use

Communities and Forums for sharing information, rather than Emails, they might find it

useless. Moreover, using forums available in Corporate Social Network is like posing

question in front of a big class for a student. People might fear being seen as an idiot and

hence prefer to ask such question in private mails. This doesn't serve the interest of using

public forum to make efficient sharing of information within the employees.

"The problem was simple and obvious because the top executives didnt see collaboration

and engagement as a good use of their time, employees quickly learned that they shouldnt

either."27 If the top executives are not engaged in Corporate Social Network, it might de-

motivate whole other employees. They might not see relevancy of the use of Corporate Social

Network because management doesn't see any relevance. After all, management is role model

for many staffs in many ways. If the management is not so involved, the staffs don't bother to

get involved in such activities

Similarly, the other problem related to implementation of Social Business Concept is that the

employees in middle-ages or old ages are not used to with the Social Media. It might take

time for them to get used to these platform. However, the new generation who grew up using

Social Medias would find it way less complicated and rather helpful.

27



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2.4 Measures to Face the Challenges and Mitigate Risks

There's a saying, 'if there is a will, there is a way.' There are certainly ways to mitigate risks

associated to the Social Media Uses by a company and to reap the investment made to

implement Enterprise Social Network in the company.

a. Leadership involvement28

Leadership involvement is very crucial part in implementation of Social Business Concept in

any organization. Employees will not engage themselves in something which leadership

doesn't care. They would like to see that their input matters and is crucial for management

decisions. The leaders need to be often in such spaces so that the employees too could take

their initiative as some guiding lines.

Li, in her article presents an example of Red Robin, a restaurant chain with a little less than

500 branches, where Yammer, a Corporate Social Network was implemented. The

management decided to change their one of the recipe and via Yammer, they could collect

overwhelming amount of reviews. These reviews were first sorted and then sent to executivesand test kitchens. It took four weeks to get improved tested version of their menu. This

similar process would have taken 12 to 18 month without the use of digital platform. So the

only thing that made the difference was that the leadership did not only use the Corporate

Social Network but also showed enough interest in its implementation and made their

employee realize that their views are heard and they matter.

Li further gives an example of Rosemary Turner, the president of UPS North Carolina

District, who uses Twitter to connect with 17000 employees busy in their daily chores. Her

twitter posts about the updates on road accidents or pictures with employees and other job

related issues makes her employee feel that she is reachable every moment. It also works as

an inspiration for her employee to be more comfortable to trust her and maintain open

dialogue with her.

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In another example she mentions David Thodey, the CEO of Telstra, the Australian

telecommunication company who posed a direct question in his company's Corporate Social

Network to know about the unnecessary processes and technologies. More than 700

responses flowed in within the first hour and helped Thodey to find out what was not working

right in his organization. He and his team used the platform to continue the discussion to let

the employees know that the management was seriously interested in their opinion and their

participation would make difference.

Even Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates use Social Media platform to constantly inform and

get guided by their "Fans". They sometime respond back to the comments that they like the

most. This gives reason to the millions of their "Fans" to constantly follow up what they are

doing and get involved in the discussion.

b. Careful use of Social Media Platform29

Social Media has to be taken real seriously than ever. People mind if their comments or

queries go unanswered even if it was posted as a comment in Social Media. Therefore, there

should be regular interaction with the "Fans" or say clients and their concerns should be

heard timely. Removing negative comment just because they are negative might not be the

best solution. Instead, companies can find a better way to address those negative comments

and try to calm the client. It might set an example for other client as how the organization

deals with negative comments. The responses give in Social Media should be well thought

and avoid any kind of further misunderstanding or issues. One should be very sensitive while

using each and every word. The posts and responses should be calmed one rather than the one

full of emotions. Emotions might sometime carry us away make us to post something which

we might regret later.

It is better to have a special team to handle Social Media activities of an organization. They

should have better knowledge of how things work in Social Media and how to handle

situation from getting worst from worse. They should monitor any kind of rumour or

activities against the organization in time and act to minimize its impact before it gets

29Walter. Nov 12, 2013; 10 Tips for Reputation And Crisis Management in the Digital World;

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ekaterinawalter/2013/11/12/10-tips-for-reputation-and-crisis-management-in-the-digital-world/ (accessed December 2015)


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uncontrollable. Making guidelines for Page or Community might help to deal during some

confusing situations.

Additionally, it is wise to have a person who knows the organization in and out and loves the

customer. S/he too should be an expert with adequate Social Media Skills. This will help in

crisis management as well as to maintain the good image of the organization in Social Media.

A good image adds to the goodwill or brand of an organization. Therefore, to hire a

professional would certainly be a good investment for the organization.

Similarly, the access to the social media should also be managed carefully. An angry

employee having access to the company's authorized Social Media page might post some hate

comments about the company causing loss of face for the company management. It is always

wise to take control of such things before things go bad.

c. Engage Proper Legal Team30

It is wise to consult lawyers in early stage of planning Social Media Strategy. That way the

possible legal risks that the organization will have to face might be sorted out in the very

beginning. This will help to provide any kind of legal troubles for the company. This stepmight also be helpful to create rules and regulation or guidelines for Social Media Usage and

activities in Corporate Social Network.

Since, the third party site guidelines can differ as per the Social Platform being used and there

might be updates time to time so a legal team can be helpful in tracking such changes and

updating other employees about them. Moreover, any employee might have some query

regarding the legal risk related to his certain activity (for e.g. using Google images in a Fan

Page without mentioning the source or taking proper consent with the copyright owner of the

material). It would be far safe to have a legal team that handles such queries on time and

provides further guidance to avoid future claims against the organization.

'Google culture' and 'copy & paste' options has made internet full of material that are not

genuine. As an individual, such acts might be overlooked by the person or the company

30Merill, Latham, Santalesa, & Navetta; 2011; Social Media: The Business Benefits May Be

Enormous, But Can the Risks- Reputational, Legal, Operational- Be Mitigated; http://www.acegroup.com/us-en/assets/ace-progress-report-social-media.pdf (accessed November, 2015)


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holding copyright. But as soon as it is an enterprise doing the same, the rightful owner of the

copyright material might sue against the enterprise for violating the copyright. This might end

up in payment of huge amount of fine for copyright infringement.

Moreover, legal trouble that might come in future due to some fraudulent act of some

individual using fake Facebook page similar to the name of the enterprise might also cause

lot of trouble to the company itself. A legal team might be very useful to handle such

situation.


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2.5 Success Story of Implementation of Social Business Concept

A. Philips Case Study31

'Royal Philips Electronics is a Netherland based company working in Health and Well-being

sector since 1891. It started from light bulbs and slowly expanded in other home appliances.

Philips radios, tape recorders and electronic shaving machines changed the way people used

to live. From 90s, it started concentrating in medical sector and producing medical

equipment easier and comfortable for health workers and patients as well. By now it is one of

the worlds established brand in health and well being sector. Philips is still fully committed

to innovation and dedicated in introducing edge cutting technology in health and well being

sector.'32

Philips with 120,000 employees spread all around the globe in different time zones had a

challenge to face. It wanted to bring all these widespread expertise in one place so that they

could work as a small and motivated team focused in single organizational goal. In 2010,

they started looking for some Corporate Social Network that could help them out to reach

their goal of creating a common platform for its employees scattered around the globe.

They chose Socialcast as their Enterprise Social Network. Being in Socialcast helped Philips

employees to find and follow experts related to their field by looking into their profile. They

could simply post their question and get answered. Expertise all around the world were happy

to share their knowledge with the employees working all around the globe. The Socialcast

users rose from mere 400 to 40,000 and are still increasing. Socialcast has helped to get

involved in company-wide themes and initiatives, sharing ideas, responding to business-

critical issues and to follow the company's progress in its business policy.

By using Corporate Social Network, they could share information that was limited to one

department across the globe. More people got to know what was going on in the company

and keep themselves updated with their organizational developments. Similarly, half of the

questions posted started getting answered within an hour and almost 90% were answered

31VMware, Inc. 2014; Philips Case Study: Enterprise Social Networking Enables Philips to Extend Knowledge

and Accelerate Innovation; http://socialcast.com/files/Philips-Case-Study.pdf (accessed December, 2015)

32

Koninklijke Philips N.V., 2004 - 2016. More than a Century of Innovation and Entrepreneurship;http://www.philips.com/a-w/about/company/our-heritage.html (accessed December, 2015)


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within 24 hours. More people could access the knowledge base of the company.

Consequently it became easy execute task and speed up the flow of innovative ideas within

the company. It also helped to improvise the customer care.

Philips also launched crowd sourcing projects such as "All Employee Jam". In this project

they asked their employees to bring up their stories related to the Philips Mission and Vision.

The aim of this discussion was to 'bring life to the company's new, refreshed Mission and

Vision statement.' They were overwhelmed to see 390 true stories based on personal

experiences posted by employees from 43 different countries from around the world. This

was more than they expected. These stories were praised and liked by over 3 thouusand users

and there were over 1 thousand feedback from among the readers. This project alone

contributed to add more than 800 new members to the company's corporate social network.

The participation in this project motivated the employee even more and brought them closer

to company Mission and Vision.

To sum up, implementation of Social Business Concept in Philips brought three major

effects: it increased collaboration among Philips employees, helped sharing expertise and

solving problems, created an engaged community and revived their association with Philips.

Philips did a lot to make the implementation process successful. They asked leaders topersonally approach their employees to tell their stories. They updated events or say progress

being made in Corporate Social Network in their intranet so that the people who are still not

inside the network could inform themselves about it. They used the active users of Corporate

Social Network users as a model to inspire other users. They trained the executives and

provided an assistant to coach them during the program. The participation of senior leaders

inspired other employees to participate in the program. The major achievement from this

huge participation was that it helped to raise greater awareness of Philips' new aims and

objectives.


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3.2. HFU in Numbers36

HFU did not just expand its campuses and faculty but also earned a huge number of students.

Similary, the number of administrative staffs and Professors has also increased. The increased

number of students and faculties show that HFU is gradually growing and getting bigger andbigger.

In the winter semester of 2000/2001 there were 2,635 students. Out of them, 11.1% i.e. 292

students were the internationals. This number has increased by more than two and half times

and reached 6643 in current semester (winter semester 2015/2016). The number of

international students pursuing their higher education at the HFU has reached close to

thousand. It is now 14.9% of the total students studying at the HFU. IF we see campus wise

growth in number of students, HFU Furtwangen had in total 1786 students sharing 67.8% of

total student population where as Schwenningen shared the rest 32.2% of the student which

was a little less than 850. There was no HFU Tuttlingen by then. However in winter semester

2015/2016 the ratio has changed. HFU Furtwangen has 3534 students. It accounts to 53.2%

of total HFU students. This is around two times the number of students at the HFU in winter

semester 2000/2001. HFU Schwenningen has done a lot better and has achieved 2491

students which is almost 3 times the number of students it had in winter semester 2000/2001.

HFU Schwenningen shares 37.5% of the total student which is more than that of wintersemester 2000/2001. The rest 618 students which is close to 10% of the total HFU belong to

the HFU Tuttlingen.

As mentioned in HFU website, there are 172 professors in total, 420 other employees and 288

part-time lecturers and professors (as of 1st April 2015). There are altogether 142 partner

universities all around the globe. The student exchange program is therefore one of the most

attractive offer that lures student in pursuing higher education at the HFU.

36

Zahlen und Fakten; HFU Website; http://www.hs-furtwangen.de/willkommen/die-hochschule/zahlen-und-fakten.html (accessed Jan 2016) (The number of faculties and faculty members were recently ammended)


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4. Communication within the HFU

As from previous chapter, it is clear that the HFU family is increasing gradually. As big it

becomes, communication becomes difficult. The amount of information created and to betransferred also increases. HFU being an educational institution, sharing of information is

also one of the crucial issues here. The students and professors conduct many researches each

year and to let everyone know the outcome of such research is very much necessary to make

the research meaningful and worthy of hard work done by professors and students

participating in it. Similarly, the students need to contact with the professors regarding their

curricular activities. The professors need to share their study materials with the students. The

communication between HFU administration and students is equally important. The HFU

itself too need to communicate many things to the students and the professors as well. To

sum up, there is a two way communication between HFU administration, professors and

students.

These three parties share huge amount of information with each other on daily basis. HFU

provides several ways to conduct these communications. The major three among them are:

Study Portal, Webmail, and Felix (a learning platform).

4.1. Study Portal37

Study portal is a platform where students can see their report cards, know about the exams

they are registered, re-register themselves for new semester and ex-matriculate themselves. It

is an online version of HFU administration to publish student's status regarding the courses

taken at the HFU. One can also edit his personal contact information in Study Portal.

Study Portal is also available as an application for smart phones. One can see summary of

credits accumulated in all the study modules. Similarly, a user can choose to see his/her

performance in certain compulsory subject as well as an elective. One can also see the

registered subjects whose grades are not yet available.

Studiportal has a quick link for the web version of online study portal where one can again

see the detailed transcript of passed exam and the list of exams one is enrolled. Studiportal is

37weblink: https://studi-portal.hs-furtwangen.de/qisserver/rds?state=user&type=0


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one of the apps by HFU that actually works well. It was developed by Christian Wuertner in

2014 as given in the description of the application itself.

4.2 Webmail38

Just like any other website offering email, webmail offers the similar service. One main

benefit of using webmail over other emails to contact anyone enrolled in HFU or HFU

professors and staff is that, if you know their first name or last name, you can easily find their

email addresses. The matching email address for certain family name or first name is shown

in a dropdown menu from where you can select the one you want to email. This would not be

so easy in other general mails unless you have already sent them email or you have saved

their email address in contact.

4.3 Felix39

Felix is a platform that supports internet based learning and exchange of information. Felix is

a platform which is popular among students at the HFU as a platform to find out lecture

presentation files. Similarly it is also used as a gateway to online language portals. In some

lectures, students even get their home-works and results of their test in Felix. It's basically a

platform to share information among, which is mostly one way, i.e. from professors and

lecturers to the students. The same ID and password is used to log into the study portal,

webmail and Felix as well.

Felix offers many services. The home page of Felix has a quick link to course, calendar,

bookmarks, notification, groups, etc. Similarly, there are separate tabs for group, course

memeo and HFU services.

i) Bookmarks and notifications

The bookmarks and notifications are a little complicated function. When you visit a link you

have possibility to save it as a bookmark. For example when you are inside a course folder

38weblink: https://webmail.hs-furtwangen.de/ox.html

39weblink: https://felix.hs-furtwangen.de/dmz/


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and you want to save the link so that you could easily reach there in one click you can click

on bookmark icon and it will be saved as your bookmark. Next time you want to visit the

folder you can simply click on the book mark and there you are.

Similary, the notification feature allows you to notify if any changes are made or if any extra

files are added to the course folder you are interested in. You can click the notification link

on the home page of felix and deicide to unsubscribe any folder anytime you want. You can

subscribe any forum, folder, wiki, task, file discussion and portfolios.40

ii) Courses

The course is one of the important for student to get the presentation of their lectures. It is

also one of the most used functions in Felix so far. There are separate catalog for separate

faculties. There are altogether 10 links for different faculties and some extra link for folders

that contain general information material not related to any specific faculty.

The course folder for Business English course by Ms Morag Lehman can be discussed here

as one of the best example of the course folder. 41She offers this course to the IBM and IBW

students. The course materials are put in separate folder categorically. She has made itpossible for students to upload their assignment via felix. The information regarding the

changes in the course or other updates are published on regular basis in Message section. One

can subscribe it to be able to read the messages via emails.

"Basically I use FELIX to post all course information including scripts, script keys,

assignment topics, presentation topics and groups, for uploading and giving back grades,

posting extra information such as interesting links and as a messaging tool to contact all class

members. For these functions it works generally very well. Now that students have to pay for

the scripts, some students just use the one on FELIX in class or download it. This works well

40Felix website; Subscription and notification; https://felix.hs-

furtwangen.de/help/en/org.olat.core.commons.services.notifications.ui/home-notifications.html (accessed

Jan 2016)

41weblink: https://felix.hs-furtwangen.de/auth/1%3A1%3A0%3A0%3A0/


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and I think more students will do this in the future when they realize that they dont have to

buy a Script." mentioned Ms Lehman in her email.42

Morag Lehman was nominated for E-Teaching award43 for three times. The HFU has been

rewarding this prize to the professors, lecturers and instructors for using Felix in creative way

in their lectures each semester since 2008. Some of the examples of creative uses are: virtual

classroom to discuss literature and previously given assignments, live programming, online

assignments, etc.

iii) Calendar

Calendar can be used like normal other calendars to mark appointments. Normally, it would

have been nicer to somehow integrate HFU lecture plan and calendar. That would make more

sense as there are many other calendar offering similar services but not all the calendar can

show HFU lesson plan. This feature could be the unique selling point for the HFU calendar

and make it usable for the students.

Calendar offers changeable views for weeks and months.

iv) Groups

Groups are least used so far. There are some groups which contain nothing and some lead to

the respective course folders. Although groups offer various functionality of a social network

such as wiki, forum, discussion, group email, folders, etc. Anyone having access to Felix can

create his/her own group and start discussion like in any other social network. One can

upload files smaller than 52.4 mb. There are separate roles for the participants. The user

interface is not like that of common social network. However, one can learn it himself/herself

in no time.

42Email from Ms Morag Lehman; see appendix

43Preistraeger/innen: E-Teaching award; HFU website; http://www.hs-furtwangen.de/willkommen/die-

hochschule/zentrale-services/informations-und-medienzentrum/learning-services/hfu-lehrpreis/preistraegerinnen.html (accessed, Jan 2015)


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v) MEMEO

MEMEO stands for Meet Me Online. MEMEO is one of the most advanced video

conferencing tool available in the market. It is way more advanced than Skype. MEMEO is

free of cost for all the students studying at the HFU. MEMEO offers various functionalities to

work online when physical presence is difficult. It allows to upload file and work together on

the same file which is not so common feature in Instant Messengers used in daily life that

support video calls. It supports voice calls and video calls as well. The MEMEO window

consists of video section, list of attendees, chat box and a work space. The host can choose

presenter and allow videos from the participants. The participant can then decide whether or

not to broadcast his/her video. Host can upload and share a presentation and give right to

others to do the same. These shared files can then be edited using smart board tools

available alongside the workspace. The host/presenter can make private/public notes.

There are many other features that can be very helpful to conduct an effective web

conference.

MEMEO requires Adobe Connect 9 to be installed in your PC. Once it is installed you don't

need to run any extra application to conduct a web-conference. It is available for mobiles too

under the name of Adobe Connect. The functions available for mobile version of the

application are very much similar to the one available for PC. However, there are some

functions such as smart board tools which are not there in mobile version. But to be honest,

MEMEO is a very fantastic tool for online collaboration.

MEMEO tab in Felix is just to give info about the web conferencing tool whereas the quick

link44 for the page to use MEMEO is available under HFU Services. You can log in to the

page using HFU ID.

One more advantage of MEMEO over other web conferencing tool is that it can be used to

conduct web conference with the participants that are not enrolled at the HFU. It has option

to let participants log in to participate or participate just by clicking the link and providing

their name. This feature makes it even more useful. Imagine a student willing to

enroll in HFU having a web-conference for taking part in an introductory program through

MEMEO.

44weblink: https://memeo.hs-furtwangen.de/


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a. Advantages of MEMEO for Professors and Students:45

MEMEO can be very useful to conduct a fruitful conversation without the participants

being in same place.

It is helpful for the professors to provide supervision to the student writing thesis

outside campus. This will benefit students as well as they don't have to be physically

available at the HFU even for a smaller advice.

It is helpful to conduct online-meetings with the students. This is mostly beneficial

during semester abroad or during thesis in some company outside campus.

It is helpful to manage projects with external partners regardless of their location. As

MEMEO can be used to participate in a web conference without logging in anywhere,

the external partner can easily participate in web-conference via MEMEO.

MEMEO can be used during project works for discussion among the student

especially when it's difficult to get a common time to meet each other.

MEMEO can also replace Skype or any other Instant Messenger allowing video chat

and help students to prepare during exams by sharing their notes and allowing them to

work together in a same page.

It helps professors to conduct virtual classrooms

With all these advantages, MEMEO too has some limitation. It is limited for its usability in

web-conferencing only. It cannot be used to send instant messages. This would have helped

to replace the obligatory use of webmail to communicate with the HFU administration or

professors and even the students. It would have been great if MEMEO was somehow

integrated with the HFU contact list to make it easy to invite certain people to conduct video-

conferencing. Adding a feature to quick text any HFU member (this function can be made

limited to the users registered at the HFU) could make life way easier. Since it's already

available in mobile, it could be an Instant Messenger for HFU members.

Looking at the various features of MEMEO and its report regarding meeting, it still seems to

be in its developmental phase. It has not so often been used by professors neither is

introduced to the students. However, when it is effectively used, it seems to be boon for HFU

students, professors and faculty members.

45

MEMEO, Felix Lernplatform; HFU Website; https://felix.hs-furtwangen.de/auth/1%3A1%3A0%3A0%3A0/(accessed Jan 2016)


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vi) Video2brain46

This is available as a quick link under HFU Services menu. Video2brain is a platform where

you can find various video trainings over different subjects in German. It is a platform that

contains 1,553 video based seminars, 69,296 video lessons worth more than 40 thousand

Euros.47 It normally costs 19.95 Euros per months for the general subscribers but for HFU

students, they can log in with their HFU IDs and apparently can access the video library for

free of cost. The premium subscribers can download the training video via Video2brain app

available for android, windows and iOS. However, the video has either to be deleted after the

end of subscription period or to be purchased for further use.

Video2brain is a linked in company based in Austria. For HFU students Video2brain stands

for a video library where they can find lots of useful video trainings to help them out in their

studies as well as in attaining some new skills. Video2brain being a platform targeted for

academic use or say educational use, you can rely on the information you gain there. These

videos trainings are mostly provided by the experts of their fields. Hence, these videos are

credible than the normal videos one can find in YouTube. The videos available are

categorized under different topic making it easy for the user to find desired video without any

trouble. Some of the categories available are business-skills, marketing, programming, photo

editing and photography, web etc.

Video2brain is the first platform in Europe to provide video trainings and exists since 2002.

They have videos in several languages such as English, German, French and Spanish on

various topics.

The major customers of Video2brain along with HFU are Technical University Munich, TU

Kaiserslautern, Hohenheim University and others.

46webink: https://www.video2brain.com/de/edu-login

47Video2brain website; Vorteil; https://www.video2brain.com/de/abos#vorteile (accessed Jan 2016)


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vii) Lynda48

Lynda is another service available for HFU students in Felix. Its quick link is available under

the menu HFU services. Just like Video2brain it is also a video library that contains video

trainings and lessons over different topics. It is basically in English. However, you can switch

to German language and access to the videos available in Video2brain. Lynda.com, Inc is

also a linked in company founded in 1995.49

The quick link under HFU services doesn't work (it might be a temporary problem). However

you can directly go to the website and log in using hfu URL. Lynda offers various type of

membership similar to that of Video2brain. Moreover, it offers group membership as well

with all the access and rights.

48weblink: https://shib.lynda.com/Shibboleth.sso/InCommon?providerId=https://idp2.hs-

furtwangen.de/idp/shibboleth&target=https://shib.lynda.com/InCommon

49Lynda Website; About us; http://www.lynda.com/aboutus/ (accessed Jan 2016)


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5. The HFU with the Outside World

An organization has not only to communicate within itself but also with the outside world.

There are many outsiders willing to know about the organization. They can be possibleinvestor or the interested customers. In case of HFU, the students seeking for the opportunity

of higher education at the HFU are the possible customers. Similarly, HFU need to make the

world aware of its presence by creating a brand. That is possible if HFU can communicate its

mission and vision effectively to the outside world. Similarly, the HFU need to showcase

what is in it for the student if they choose the HFU as their destination for higher

education.

There are several ways for an organization to communicate with the outside world. The

company advertisement in various magazines or in electronic media channels is one way to

make people remember the name. After all advertisements are merely peeps into the product

or service offered by the organization. Ju

Documents

Implementation of Social Business Concept at the HFU