Actiance whitepaper-6th-annual-collaborative-internet survey 2011

WHITE PAPER

The Collaborative Internet:
Usage Trends, End User
Attitudes, and IT Impact
Sixth Annual Survey - 2011

WHITE PAPER – 6th Annual Collaborative Internet Survey, 2011 2

Background
In 2011, Actiance, Inc., continued its tradition of surveying end users and IT managers on how they use real-time
communication platforms in the work environment.

Respondents were asked about their use of Unified Communications, Social Networking and other Web 2.0 applications
such as P2P and VoIP, and, for the first time – Enterprise Social Networks, and what they perceived the impact was on
productivity, corporate reputations, enterprise security and IT.

The survey resulted in over 900 sets of data collected from end users and IT managers. End user data was compared with
that collected from IT managers to provide a holistic view of what is happening in enterprises today.

The increasing adoption and use of these solutions requires that enterprises put in place measures to mitigate the risks
of data leakage, non-compliance with industry and government regulations, and threats from increasingly sophisticated
malware, viruses and phishing attempts which are propagated through these new communication channels.

Worldwide Headquarters EMEA Headquarters
1301 Shoreway, Suite 275 400 Thames Valley Park
Belmont, CA 94002 USA Reading, Berkshire, RG6 1PT UK
(650) 631-6300 phone +44 (0) 118 963 7469 phone
info@actiance.com emea@actiance.com

©2001-2011 Actiance, Inc.


Methodology
In 2011, Actiance conducted a survey of the use of real-time communication platforms – including chat and IM
applications, collaborative suites and services, enterprise social networks, and social networking sites and services.

This is the sixth annual survey of this nature that Actiance has conducted. The survey sampled corporate IT and IS
managers and the end users of these applications and focused specifically on the use of real-time communication
platforms within the workplace and corporate networks.

The survey was promoted to prospects and customers of Actiance via opt-in email lists as well as on social networks such
as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter by word-of-mouth through Actiance employees.

As a token of appreciation for the time and effort of the respondents, Actiance offered a $100 Amazon gift card for every
100 responses received to the survey,

All responses for the purposes of this survey are anonymous with no links back to specific users or companies. Names and
email addresses were collected so that Actiance could contact the respondents who had won the Amazon gift cards.

Respondents to the survey came from across all industry sectors and classified their companies as follows:

• Publicly traded for profit (40%)

• Privately traded for profit (37%)

• Non-profit organization (8%)

• State or Local Government (6%)

• Federal Government (5%)

• Education 4%

More than 70% of respondents worked at organizations with more than 500 employees, with 15% working in enterprises
with more than 50,000 employees.

The survey was open to respondents across the world, with the majority of responses generated from US respondents
(84%), UK (5%), Canada (4%), Rest of World (7%).

Final respondent counts included 914 IT managers and end users.

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Summary
The Continued Rise of Corporate Social Networking
With 90% of survey respondents indicating that they have personal profile pages on one or more social networks, it’s not
surprising that this “online multiple personality complex” has carried over into the corporate environment.

Our research shows that although organizations are increasingly cautious about risk when it comes to leveraging the
benefits of social networks, many have not yet adopted internal policies or implemented technologies to ensure that they
are using social in a safe and compliant manner.

• 84% of organizations polled have a nominated individual or department who update and maintain the content on the
corporate page

• 20% go a step further by having their legal team vet the content before it is posted to ensure compliance with existing
regulations and prevent sensitive data from being leaked

Across the board, our research has shown that IT staff members have greatly underestimated their company’s use of social
networking. For instance, 12% of IT staff believed that their company or organization was ‘tweeting’ but non-IT staff, who
included marketing and communications professionals, estimated social engagement to be as high as 61%.

The difference in perception is not surprising considering that IT tend to have a more conservative approach toward
social networks, largely due to the perceived risks:

• 44% feel that social networks present a great deal of risk to their networks

• 35% feel that Twitter presents a great deal of risk to their networks

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Enterprise Social Networks – IT Prefers it, but What Do Users Think?
IT staff have a more favorable attitude toward the Enterprise Social Network (ESN) - offering the features and benefits
of the public social network to staff within a controlled environment, which they feel presents ‘little or no risk’ to network
security.

18% of non-IT staff uses ESN (as opposed to 90% who use public social networks). The most common ESN is Microsoft
SharePoint, used by 66% of our respondents.

The research indicates that while IT under-estimates the use of public social networks and Twitter within their
organizations, they also over-estimate the use of Enterprise Social Networks by their colleagues.

Social Networking in Regulated Industries

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Social Networking in Regulated Industries

Respondents have indicated a steady adoption of social networks even within regulated industries such as banking,
healthcare, energy and government. 20% of banking finance industry organizations have not issued usage or best
practice guidelines to staff regarding corporate pages on social networking sites.

This amplifies compliance risks for these organizations considerably. Furthermore, across these regulated industries,
monitoring of social networks is still low, despite both regulatory organizations and guidelines such as Sarbanes-Oxley
(SOX), FINRA and FSA, which require all electronic communications – including content posted on social networks –
to be preserved and archived.

The survey also found that in regulated industries, social media and collaboration tools are not being treated like
traditional forms of electronic communications, such as Email. Electronic communications include everything from
text messages to Tweets, and fall under compliance mandates set by industry regulators. However, the research
indicates that these are not being monitored or archived like they should.

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% of IT departments who did not archive or store content posted by staff on social networks or corporate pages on
social networking sites:

Should these organizations be asked by lawyers or regulators to reproduce content posted on social networking sites
or corporate pages on social networks, IT departments overwhelmingly feel that they will not be able to reproduce the
information or that it would be impossible to reproduce those documents

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Social Networking Trends in the Workplace
Employee Use of Social Networking
As found in previous annual surveys done by Actiance, the use of social networking at work either for work or
personal reasons, has experienced phenomenal growth - from 81% in 2008 to 95% in 2009.

This year, the survey found that over 90% of all respondents maintained a personal profile on at least one social
networking site. Out of these respondents, 20% used their corporate email address as the login for those social
networking sites.

The use of corporate email addresses as logins for social networking sites could point to an increasing number of
organizations who encourage their employees to interact with their customers and prospects on social networking
sites. However, this also exposes the organization to the risk of litigation, potential for intellectual property to be
leaked and phishing attempts on the corporate network if users have not been properly and regularly educated on the
best practice use of social networks when representing an organization.

40% of the IT managers surveyed revealed that their organization provided guidance to its employees around using
their corporate email address to create and log in to personal profiles and pages on social networking sites, but
admitted that they had no way of keeping track if internal guidelines were being adhered to. 38% of organizations
went even further – with a clear policy prohibiting employees from using their corporate email addresses to create
personal profiles and pages on social networking sites.

The remainder of organizations expose themselves to the risks mentioned above as they have no policy in place
around this issue.

The number of respondents using Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube for work related purposes continues
to grow, with the latest survey showing the highest numbers of adoption yet. LinkedIn remains the preferred social
network of choice for work related purposes (92%), but this is closely followed by Twitter (83%).

Chart: Use of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter YouTube for work-related purposes

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Respondents also reported an increase in the frequency with which they accessed social networks at work. 66%
accessed social networking sites at least once a day in 2011. In 2009 this figure was 61%, up from 51% the year
before. In this survey, 21% of respondents used social networking sites constantly throughout the day compared with
15% in 2009.

2011 seems to be the year that applications on Facebook have come to the forefront of corporate users with 64% of
respondents making their own applications for Facebook in 2011 compared to just 29% in 2009.

Table: Facebook functions used by respondents for work-related purposes

2011 2009 2008
Create publicize events 76% 61% 18%
Make your own applications 64% 29% *
Join Facebook fan groups 59% 51% 26%
Status Updates 50% * *
Purchase and give gifts 40% 27% 7%
Posting applications like Wall, Fun Wall, Super Wall 36% 23% 10%
Enter competitions 35% * *
Upload, tag, and share photos 33% 20% 13%
Games like Scrabble, Farmville or Mafia Wars 4% 3% 2%

*Question not asked in previous survey

Corporate Use of Social Networks
The results of the survey also show that organizations are increasingly turning to social networks. In this year’s
survey, 79% of respondents said their organization had a corporate page on Facebook, 61% had corporate pages on
LinkedIn, 61% on Twitter and 46% on YouTube.

These results illustrate the trend of “online multiple personality complex” has also taken root within the corporate
environment. Respondents surveyed explained that their organizations were using their presence on social networking
sites for a variety of purposes including ‘advertising’, ‘hiring’ and ‘competitive intelligence’.

Within this framework of increasing investment by organizations in social networking sites, also comes an increasing
awareness of the risks posed by social networks.

84% of respondents whose organization had a presence on social networking sites had nominated individuals or
departments who updated and maintained the content. In stark contrast, only 20% had the requirement for their
legal team to vet the content before posting.

However, 15% of organizations did not have any policies in place for the maintenance of their corporate presence
or pages on social networking sites – respondents indicated that anyone in the company could update the corporate
pages or that the employees just did what they ‘think is best’

IT Manager Perception
The survey results indicate that IT staff members greatly underestimate their organization’s use of social networking.
For instance, 12% of IT staff believed that their organization was ‘tweeting’ but non-IT staff, who included marketing
and communications professionals, estimated the number to be as high as 61%.

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Chart: Estimates of social networking usage on the corporate network by IT and non-IT staff

The difference in perception is not surprising considering that IT tend to have a more conservative approach toward
social networks, largely due to the perceived risks:

• 44% feel that social networks present a great deal of risk to their networks

• 35% feel that Twitter presents a great deal of risk to their networks

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Enterprise Social Networks
The IT managers who responded to the survey have a more favorable attitude toward the Enterprise Social Network
(ESN) - offering the features and benefits of the public social network to staff within a controlled environment,
which 58% of IT respondents feel presents ‘little or no risk’ to network security. By way of contrast – 86% of IT
respondents feel that public social networks present a significant amount of risk to network security.

18% of non-IT staff uses ESN (as opposed to 90% who use public social networks). The most common ESN is
Microsoft SharePoint, used by 66% of our respondents.

The research indicates that while IT under-estimates the use of public social networks and Twitter within their
organizations, they tend to over-estimate the use of Enterprise Social Networks by their colleagues.

Chart: IT vs Non-IT Planned Use of Enterprise Social Networks (specific regulated industries)

Respondents who use ESN were asked if they had any guidelines or controls in place for it. Respondents indicated
that while most organizations had access policies for the ESN, only 42% provided any guidance around content
posts, only 12% used moderation, and less than a quarter of respondents were retaining the content posted.

Table: Organizations with policies in place for their Enterprise Social Networks

General Access Policy 80%
Employee education around content suitable for posting 42%
Content and file sharing 38%
Moderation of content posted by legal or senior executive team 12%
Ethical Boundaries 20%
Archiving of content posted 23%

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Adoption of Unified Communications
The number of Unified Communications (UC) platforms in use has risen significantly since the last survey done. 63%
of respondents have a UC solution deployed in 2011 compared with 34% in 2009 and 29% in 2008.

Chart: UC Deployment

The number of respondents who do not think that they will roll out a UC platform within their organization has also
dropped from 30% (2009) to 22% (2011).

As UC platforms continue to enrich their feature sets, the survey shows greater adoption by organizations to maximize
functionality of the UC.

Table: UC Feature Deployment

Already Deployed 2011 Already Deployed 2009 Already Deployed 2008
Email 88% 80% 74%
Instant Messaging 66% 60% 57%
Gateway to Public Instant Messaging 27% * *
Federation with other UC Platforms 18% * *
Group Chat 39% * *
VoIP 68% 53% 49%
Presence/contact information 59% 48% 38%
Audio/video conferencing 66% 55% 47%
Web conferencing 69% * *
File Sharing 66% 51% 50%
Diaries/Calendars 64% * *

*Question not asked in previous surveys

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51% of organizations with a UC platform have enabled or are planning to enable their employees to use the platform
for external communications – a process is known as “federation.”

Organizations who have chosen to federate their UC platforms are doing so with business partners (66%), customers
(46%) and IT vendors (45%).

Chart: UC platform federation

Organizations are beginning to realize that to maximize employee adoption and usage of UC platforms for real-time
communications, they need to open them up to communicate externally with other UC platforms and public instant
messaging networks. Of the respondents surveyed, the following were the external connections organizations were
making from their UC platform:

Public Instant Messaging Networks 26%
External parties who are using the same UC platform 39%
External parties who are using another vendor’s UC platform 11%
All of the above 24%

Federation carries with it the risks of loss of sensitive company information, non-compliance with industry and
government regulations and viruses and malware threats. 92% of organizations surveyed would not take this step
without either implementing security or content controls or both.

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Corporate Policies for Monitoring, Compliance e-Discovery
The survey results show that organizations are becoming more aware of the risks posed by real-time communication
platforms and are keeping a close watch on the internet activity of its employees.

78% of organizations now monitor email compared with 67% in 2009. In 2011, 31% of social networking
commentary is monitored compared with 17% in 2009. Echoing this trend, the number of organizations who do not
do any monitoring has fallen from 11% in 2009 to 7% in 2011.

Chart: Organizations with policies in place for monitoring communications

51% of respondents work at organizations where there are policies in place specific to the use of social networking
and micro-blogging sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

20% say that they are only allowed to access social networking whilst at work for work-related purposes, with 11% of
respondents not allowed to access social networking at all whilst at work.

Enforcing Corporate Policies
Despite implementation of internal policies, 52% of IT managers report that they struggle to enforce them in relation
social networking.

Archiving and Retaining Social Networking Content
While the majority of IT managers (61%), have been issued legal guidance for archiving email only 22% have been
asked to retain content posted to social networks by staff or archive corporate pages on social networks.

Users from Regulated Industries
The survey asked respondents if they were subject to industry regulations. Respondents from regulated industries
such as banking and finance, healthcare, energy and government indicated a steady adoption of social networks.
Current government and country-specific regulations clearly outline the requirements for retention of electronic
communications, including the handling of social media interactions.

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FINRA 11-39 specifically states that the content of the electronic communications determines whether it should be
preserved, regardless of the medium or where the content was posted. FINRA regulated firms are advised to retain
business-related electronic communications in full. If a firm needs to delete content from its corporate page on a
social network because for instance, an inappropriate comment has been posted, the firm is still required to retain
the full record in its archive for compliance with SEC 17a-4.

FINRA regulated firms need to have a clear retention policy in place for all social networking content to comply with
11-39.

Despite government mandates, 45% of IT Managers whose firms are subject to FINRA regulations either have not
yet received clear guidance from their attorneys or legal counsel with regards to the retention of corporate pages on
social networks or don’t know about guidance issued. And 48% either have not yet received clear guidance on the
retention of content posted to social networks by staff or don’t know about guidance issued.

e-Discovery
IT managers surveyed were also asked if they would be able to produce all the electronic communications written
by a specific individual within their organization. While only 3% of those surveyed said that it would be impossible
to produce email, this figure leaps to 31% for content posted to social networks, 24% for corporate pages on social
networking sites, 27% for web conferencing, and 19% for instant messaging.

Chart: IT Managers who cannot produce electronic communications or who will find it impossible to produce
electronic communications if required

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Even within regulated industries such as Banking Finance and Energy Utilities, the figures are very similar. For
instance, while only 3% of banking and finance organizations say that they cannot practically produce or would find it
impossible to produce emails, this figure jumps to 44% when looking at corporate pages on social networking sites.

Table: Firms in regulated industries who cannot practically produce or who will find it impossible to produce
electronic communications

Banking Finance Energy Utilities
Emails 3% 6%
IM, Chat, UC 24% 24%
Web Conferencing 42% 59%
Content posted by staff on social networks 61% 65%
Corporate pages on social networking sites 44% 47%

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In Conclusion
Business Requirement or IT Threat?

Organizations overwhelmingly understand that they need an online presence such as a Facebook page or general web
site. Despite this, the formal adoption of internal social networking and collaboration guidelines is lagging behind.
Enforcement of these corporate policies is nearly non-existent or not currently possible. Regulations surrounding
social media and electronic communications are complex and varied, but very clear in their expectations. Corporate
legal teams or outside counsel is not currently communicating these requirements to the IT teams in charge of
implementing technologies to support these mandates. In 2011 there were numerous cases of fines, sanctions,
and enforcement of these regulations by governmental bodies such as FINRA. Adding to the corporate compliance
challenges are the security risks posed by the unmonitored use of social networks.

Social networking is blamed for many of the problems faced by IT – bandwidth issues (65%); malware exposure
(61%); compliance issues (52%); liability due to miscommunication (49%); and loss of secret or sensitive company
information (46%).

Among the non-IT managers surveyed, a surprising 71% agree that the use of social networking sites are a risk to
the business and need to be managed, this figure is up from 62% (2009) perhaps illustrating that end-users are
becoming more aware and better educated about the threats posed. 34% of IT Managers surveyed reported that
their organizations suffered from the loss of sensitive company data through social networks and 72% of IT managers
report that social networking was the reason for disciplinary action on their organization’s employees.

Despite this, 43% of IT Managers feel that they cannot effectively detect or control traffic to social networking sites
from their network.

Perhaps it is no surprise that 55% of IT Managers feel that the advantages of social networks do not outweigh
the risks. Social networking, whether for personal or business reasons, is fast superseding all other forms of
communication. 51% feel that they need to access social networks in order to do their jobs well, up slightly from
49% in 2009.

Together, the issues presented by social networking and collaboration tools are daunting, but organizations can no
longer afford to turn a blind eye.

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About Actiance
Actiance helps organizations manage, secure and ensure compliance across unified communications, collaboration
and Web 2.0 applications such as blogs, wikis and social networks. Actiance’s award-winning platforms are used by 9
of the top 10 US banks and 284 FINRA regulated firms globally.

The Actiance platform allows organizations to gain visibility of applications in use, apply usage and content policies,
ensure compliance and gain valuable insights across the communications and collaboration channels. Actiance
supports all leading social networks, unified communications and collaboration providers and IM platforms, including
Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google, Yahoo!, AOL, Skype, Cisco, Microsoft, Jive, and IBM.

Actiance is headquartered in Belmont, California.

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Contacting Actiance
Worldwide Headquarters
Actiance, Inc.
1301 Shoreway
Suite 275
Belmont, CA 94002
USA
Toll-free: (888) 349-3223
Phone: (650) 631-6300
Fax: (650) 598-2820
General email: info@actiance.com

Actiance EMEA
Actiance, Inc.
400 Thames Valley Park Drive
Thames Valley Park
Reading, RG6 1PT
United Kingdom
Phone: +44 (0) 1189 637 469
Fax: +44 (0) 1189 637 532
Email: EMEA@actiance.com

Actiance India
Actiance India Pvt. Ltd.
Le Parc Richmonde,
51 Richmond Road,
Bangalore - 560 025
India
Phone: +91 80 41125250

Sales
North America
Toll-free: (888) 349-3223, option 1
Sales email: sales@actiance.com

UK EMEA
Phone: +44 (0) 1189 637 469
Fax: +44 (0) 1189 637 552
Sales email: EMEA@actiance.com

APAC
Sydney, Australia
Sales email: APAC@actiance.com

Latin America
Sales email: LATAM@actiance.com

A-WP-024-0312

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