Social networking, the Internet rage that’s helping fuel Howard Dean’s bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, has been around for longer than the current buzz might suggest.
Most of the excitement is directed at Web sites that help people find dates, get job leads or recruit political allies.
Another side to this technology that is geared toward helping professional firms do business has been marketed for more than five years by Interface Software, a privately held firm based in Oak Brook that has 110 employees.
Interface does work for major law firms and consultants, helping them to harness and manage their contacts with people to enhance business, said Nathan Fineberg, the firm’s chief executive.
Software from the company measures, reads and evaluates the e-mails and messages sent by people and mines their electronic databases of contacts in a way that both gathers information and protects worker privacy, Fineberg said.
“Providing security and control is a very important component,” he said. “People don’t want to give up their relationships.”
At firms using Interface’s software, employees may search a database for information about an individual, much the way they would on a search engine like Google.
If the program discovers that someone else in the firm has the targeted individual in their list of contacts, it informs the searcher of this.
The information may be masked, however; the searcher will be told the information exists but is anonymous. Then a request will be sent to the person holding the contact to learn if he is willing to share it, Fineberg said.
“This gives security and control,” he said. “In almost all instances, he’s willing to help a colleague by sharing the information, but you must let him decide.”
More Top Picks How To Keep A Migraine Diary That Actually Helps
Because personal connections and relationships drive many deals made in business, having an organized way to learn all of your company’s contacts can be invaluable, yet it is often ignored.
“Many times when a lawyer leaves a firm, he’ll take his clients with him,” said Fineberg. “He’ll join a new firm and then call them and ask for their business. In most cases, no one from the old firm has contacted those people to say, `Hey, even though one lawyer left our firm, we still love you.’
“That’s because in many cases the law firm has no central list of who these clients are. They may notice they’re losing clients and figure it out. That’s when they come to us.”
The current buzz on social networking has been good for Interface, Fineberg said, because it raises general awareness. Even though many start-ups are joining the field, he is unworried about competition.
“Most of them will be out of business before long,” he said. “They don’t have a business model to make money.”
Deregulation path: Incumbent local phone companies, especially SBC Communications Inc., will continue seeking an end to government-mandated network sharing with competitors at low wholesale rates, but they evidently cannot expect much sympathy from the Federal Communications Commission.
In a speech, FCC Commissioner Kevin Martin said the FCC has already offered Bell companies a path to deregulation by upgrading their networks to broadband. Martin, a Republican, last year sided with two Democrats on the commission to thwart an effort by FCC Chairman Michael Powell to phase out regulations the Bells find odious.
He said the Bells have things backward when they ask for deregulation so they can invest in network upgrades. “They essentially are saying `Free us and we will invest. We have responded, `Invest and you will be free.'”