I’ve been observing a lot of discussion related to the topic of social networking. During the last few months, I had the chance to discuss this topic with many people – customers, vendors, analysts. We have seen many product announcements in this space from many vendors – general IT software providers (Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM), PLM providers (PTC), and some others.
In my opinion, there is a significant blur around social networking and how “everything social” influences and impacts Product Lifecycle Management in general, and collaboration more specifically. I strongly believe that as social networking is terms emerged from the consumer space, it needs to be carefully transformed for handling by enterprises in general and manufacturing organizations specifically.
As my first exercise, I will compare the differences and similarities between social networking and PLM collaboration according to five questions – Who?, What?, Why?, Where?, How?
So, to conclude my take on differences between social networking and PLM collaboration, I have to say that they have a lot in common. Although goals, objectives and audience are different, they both will have similar communication and user experience. Regarding business logic, it needs to be different. Especially for enterprises and manufacturing organizations, being able to support the right business processes and corporate activities is very important.
