Research

"We started out with a discussion about Beehive — a sort of enterprise Facebook that IBM has developed for internal use — which has gained 33,000 users in less than a year since internal release. That's 10% of IBM's workforce, which is a pretty significant adoption rate considering that it's not optional for creating any sort of work product. Beehive is purely a social platform, not a work platform, to allow IBM employees to create social and personal connections. I have friends within IBM, mostly former FileNet people who were absorbed during the acquisition, and one of them speaks glowingly of Beehive as a way to find other people with similar interests to her in order to find people whom with to collaborate.

"The interesting thing about IBM and Enterprise 2.0 is that IBM definitely eats their own dogfood; in fact, they eat it long before they consider serving it up to their customers. . . . Similarly, there are plans to productize Beehive and Fringe as behind-the-firewall social applications for enterprises under the Lotus Connections brand, now that they've had a chance to polish off the rough edges through their own internal use. These aren't just for big enterprises: some smaller companies are using them as well.

"The interesting opportunity is that IBM puts a stamp of credibility on the whole social networking space by offering applications to enterprises, which will undoubtedly benefit other social application vendors as the tide rises. They also see (rightly) that their social technology is far ahead of Microsoft's, although it is being positioned against SharePoint in some cases. . . ." Read more

-- Sandy Kemsley, "Enterprise 2.0: IBM's Social Networking Directions," Information Week, 11 June 2008.

"You can tell just from looking at the Beehive program under development at IBM Corp. that something is different. . . . Beehive is an online portal for employees to describe their expertise, so valuable knowledge doesn't get lost inside the bureaucracy. Those kinds of tools are common, but Beehive adds an unusual dose of Facebook or MySpace. The 27,000 IBMers using Beehive can post pictures, video, and one-sentence updates about themselves. They can share lists of "things I can't live without." ... And the usual communication tools like e-mail, instant messaging, phones and even videoconferencing do only so much to fill the gap."

-- AP News, "'Virtual watercooler' makes workplace more fun," CNN.com, 12 May 2008.

"With an initiative called Beehive, IBM is experimenting further. The application uses the code base of BluePages, which is based on Lotus Connections, but it's a separate system. IBM's Jeff Schick: 'Poor user adoption is rarely because users didn't know how but rather didn't see why.'

"Beehive is intended as a collaborative platform that emulates the physical work environment, where employees display personal items like photographs and trophies and chat about last night's game. 'We've added new dimensions to the profile capability to create the old-fashioned camaraderie of the office,' Schick says. The idea is to discover whether what Schick calls 'the water cooler effect' will help people build stronger relationships and thus create a more effective organization.

"For Michael Ackerbauer, a manager in the CIO's office at IBM, the results are already in. He learned about Beehive a year ago, and 'I quickly got hooked,' he says, especially since he manages a team of developers who work remotely. 'It's valuable for the team to get to know me on a personal level, and I like to get to know them.'" Read more

-- Mary Brandel, "The new employee connection: Social networking behind the firewall," Computerworld, Networking and Intranet, 11 August 2008.

"This application is IBM's Facebook. Boasting 6,500 IBM profiles, the application is not only attractive but totally serviceable, allowing users to post pictures and video, and share event information. Moreover, users can drag and drop text like it's going out of style. Beehive has great promise as a product, but, for it to make money, IBM will have to offer Beehive as a white-label platform." Read more

"10 New Technologies IBM Is Cooking in Its Innovation Labs," e-week.com

"One of the more interesting concepts is Beehive, an opt-in internal social network to help the thousands of IBM employees get to know each other better. As IBM's Facebook, Beehive has drawn more than 6,500 employees to the fold since hitting beta last October, allowing employees to share personal and professional information with colleagues.

"Beehive has many of the characteristics of your typical social network -- profiles, lists, events, photos -- and users can post photos and videos like any other media-oriented site. The software also allows users to drag and drop information throughout their profiles.

"Self-branding is the key with Beehive; users needn't provide required information the way other social sites do, Beth Brownholtz, software engineer of collaborative user experience for IBM Research, told eWEEK. Users can portray themselves the way they want, choosing what they want to share and what they want to keep private. Users can also leave comments." Read more

-- Clint Boulton, "IBM's Social Beehive and Discovery Search," eweek.com, 21 January 2008