The new ESN features will be released in summer 2009.

Enterprises are becoming aware of the potential of social networks inspired by the immensely popular services developed for Internet users – but they require guarantees of total security, control and ownership of information exchanged across the company.

Jalios believes that enterprise social networks are particularly powerful when combined with collaborative services, which are much more than simple shared workspaces. It is essential to place users, not just information, at the center of the network. This means an ESN must incorporate four use-centric management functions: profiles, activities, relationships and know-how.

An ESN federates, mobilizes and motivates all the staff by fostering stronger ties between them; it affirms their belonging to a company-wide community, spurring them to support its common objectives. These advantages are particularly important in large or dispersed structures: multinationals, groups formed from mergers, federated structures, franchise networks and the like.

First and foremost, an ESN enhances performance and synergies between teams. It can support all kinds of corporate activities: know-how exchange in expert communities, contact between geographically separated colleagues, building practical knowledge bases, finding and developing in-house talent, etc.

Acting as an enabler and accelerator, a social network is particularly beneficial for transversal structures. For example, it provides a natural vehicle for staff working on emerging ideas and new products and services.

The ESN features of Jalios JCMS cover four broad functionalities:

• Profile management (who is who?): Some information about the digital identity of network members is found in the enterprise directory, often the most-used service on the intranet. The directory is completed in a declarative manner by staff who add their fields of expertise, centers of interest, personal bookmarks, training and career path. In consistency with Jalios' usual approach, the profile structure can be easily configured to adapt to the specific needs of the enterprise: the information that can be shared over the network is fully controlled, taking into account the corporate culture, organization, goals and users.
• Activity tracking (who does what?): Network users can see information about people's activities: publications, comments on content, membership of working groups and forums, and even regular activities such as Twitter-type micro-blogging. However, they see only the activities of their direct contacts, and all usage is subject to rights; for example, a member will be informed that someone has created or updated a document only if he is allowed to access this document.
• Expertise management (who knows what?): One reason for focusing an ESN on people is to make it easier to find experts to reply to questions or to accept missions. The profile information is the starting point, but activity information can be exploited too: writing on particular subjects, specialist forums, and so on.
• Relationship management (who knows who?): When experts are identified by performing searches on their fields of expertise, people can contact them. One key characteristic of Jalios ESN is that it manages contacts with partners, customers or suppliers external to the company's social network. For example, users can see who within the enterprise has contacts with a particular partner or customer (who does not have access to the ESN).

Collaborative spaces: the ESN functions integrate naturally with the other popular features of Jalios JCMS. When a group forms in a social network, it can immediately create collaborative spaces to share information. These spaces have convivial Web 2.0 type usability and useful tools to animate communities: wikis, blogs, comments, documentary spaces, forums, agendas, task management, and others.

Security is completely assured: member authentication (with SSO and LDAP directory), total data confidentiality, control of read/write rights, etc.

Jalios has succeeded in making these new ESN services very easy to use: as for mass-market social networks, almost no training is needed. They further enhance Jalios JCMS, a product whose functional richness makes it unrivaled on the French market.

Following a number of pre-release demonstrations, several large groups have already decided to implement ESN services on JCMS later this year.