The Wall Street Journal
Korea's LG CNS uses Web service to build internal system for workers to communicate
SEOUL—When a senior executive at a South Korean company recently wanted to find some partners for lunch, he sent a Twitter message—but only to employees within his technology-services firm.
The company, LG CNS Co., has been experimenting with a version of Twitter—the short-burst messaging service used on computers and cellphones—that it created for the internal use of its 7,000 employees.
Called BizTweet, the system at LG CNS is an example of a less-heralded offshoot of the Twitter phenomenon: Companies are using it for internal communication and other purposes beyond the external marketing for which it has become well known.
Twitter Inc., the San Francisco-based creator of the system, initially marketed its service as a way for individuals to broadcast quick messages to friends. Companies like Starbucks Corp. and Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. have embraced it as a way to reach consumers. But now, just as they did with other Web technologies, people are finding new ways to make use of the Twitter concept.
Twitter's creators laid the foundation for such development by using open-source software to make the system and releasing features they've developed in a public form called an application programming interface, or API.
A Twitter spokesman said BizTweet is "just another cool use" of Twitter's technology and "showcases the power of open platforms and reinforces Twitter's value for businesses." He said more than 230,000 third-party applications have been built using Twitter's technology.
In South Korea, Twitter is a relatively new phenomenon due to the delayed entry of smartphones, which were kept out of the country by government rules until last year. But the uptake has been swift this year. Estimates vary widely, but there are believed to be between 400,000 and one million Twitter accounts in the country. Several prominent executives, politicians and entertainers have built followings for their Twitter messages, or tweets.
At LG CNS, a group of developers who maintain the company's array of internal message boards, employee blogs and databases decided the Twitter-style service could provide a means for mass communication that was less formal than email and less technical than postings on topic-oriented bulletin boards.
The group of employees took several of the key Twitter APIs and built BizTweet on LG CNS's internal network. Last month, they invited 1,000 employees to test BizTweet. What has emerged, they say, is a real-time public conversation in the company. On Monday, the company made BizTweet available to all of its employees, and they posted more than 300 messages.
"This system doesn't replace any of the other tools on the intranet," says Lim You-kyoung, one of the developers. "It is more informal and creative."
Employees discuss simple things like the weather and sports, but most of the traffic ends up being about work. They notify each other about seminars, post reports from meetings, seek volunteers to test products and solicit ideas for problems they're facing with customers.
LG CNS's executives worried that BizTweet users might become too focused on nonwork items, becoming a kind of electronic water cooler that couldn't be controlled, says Choi So-young, a company spokeswoman who participated in the test.
"This is not a playground," Ms. Choi says. But few rumors and time-wasting information emerged on the corporate system.
Developers say that's because the system uses an employee's real name and photograph, unlike the pseudonyms on the public Twitter. "Before you write something down, you are likely to think that everyone can see it," says Yi Jae, another LG CNS employee. "We say it's fun but less fun" than the public Twitter, he says.
LG CNS is studying whether to provide the system as a product to its clients, which hire the company to design, build and sometimes run their data systems. The company is part of the LG business group that is best known for LG Electronics Inc., maker of televisions, cellphones and appliances, and LG Chem Ltd., the maker of batteries for hybrid and electric cars.
But the company's marketers face a challenge because the corporate culture inside most South Korean companies is still rigidly hierarchical, with information chiefly flowing from the top down and lower-level employees rarely allowed to directly talk to senior executives. Many firms may be reluctant to embrace a system like BizTweet that permits such an open flow of communication.
"Corporate culture is changing and autonomy and creativity is more and more important," says Kang Yu-kyoung, one of the developers at LG CNS. "This is just part of that change."
SEOUL—When a senior executive at a South Korean company recently wanted to find some partners for lunch, he sent a Twitter message—but only to employees within his technology-services firm.
The company, LG CNS Co., has been experimenting with a version of Twitter—the short-burst messaging service used on computers and cellphones—that it created for the internal use of its 7,000 employees.
Called BizTweet, the system at LG CNS is an example of a less-heralded offshoot of the Twitter phenomenon: Companies are using it for internal communication and other purposes beyond the external marketing for which it has become well known.
Twitter Inc., the San Francisco-based creator of the system, initially marketed its service as a way for individuals to broadcast quick messages to friends. Companies like Starbucks Corp. and Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. have embraced it as a way to reach consumers. But now, just as they did with other Web technologies, people are finding new ways to make use of the Twitter concept.
Twitter's creators laid the foundation for such development by using open-source software to make the system and releasing features they've developed in a public form called an application programming interface, or API.
A Twitter spokesman said BizTweet is "just another cool use" of Twitter's technology and "showcases the power of open platforms and reinforces Twitter's value for businesses." He said more than 230,000 third-party applications have been built using Twitter's technology.
In South Korea, Twitter is a relatively new phenomenon due to the delayed entry of smartphones, which were kept out of the country by government rules until last year. But the uptake has been swift this year. Estimates vary widely, but there are believed to be between 400,000 and one million Twitter accounts in the country. Several prominent executives, politicians and entertainers have built followings for their Twitter messages, or tweets.
At LG CNS, a group of developers who maintain the company's array of internal message boards, employee blogs and databases decided the Twitter-style service could provide a means for mass communication that was less formal than email and less technical than postings on topic-oriented bulletin boards.
The group of employees took several of the key Twitter APIs and built BizTweet on LG CNS's internal network. Last month, they invited 1,000 employees to test BizTweet. What has emerged, they say, is a real-time public conversation in the company. On Monday, the company made BizTweet available to all of its employees, and they posted more than 300 messages.
"This system doesn't replace any of the other tools on the intranet," says Lim You-kyoung, one of the developers. "It is more informal and creative."
Employees discuss simple things like the weather and sports, but most of the traffic ends up being about work. They notify each other about seminars, post reports from meetings, seek volunteers to test products and solicit ideas for problems they're facing with customers.
LG CNS's executives worried that BizTweet users might become too focused on nonwork items, becoming a kind of electronic water cooler that couldn't be controlled, says Choi So-young, a company spokeswoman who participated in the test.
"This is not a playground," Ms. Choi says. But few rumors and time-wasting information emerged on the corporate system.
Developers say that's because the system uses an employee's real name and photograph, unlike the pseudonyms on the public Twitter. "Before you write something down, you are likely to think that everyone can see it," says Yi Jae, another LG CNS employee. "We say it's fun but less fun" than the public Twitter, he says.
LG CNS is studying whether to provide the system as a product to its clients, which hire the company to design, build and sometimes run their data systems. The company is part of the LG business group that is best known for LG Electronics Inc., maker of televisions, cellphones and appliances, and LG Chem Ltd., the maker of batteries for hybrid and electric cars.
But the company's marketers face a challenge because the corporate culture inside most South Korean companies is still rigidly hierarchical, with information chiefly flowing from the top down and lower-level employees rarely allowed to directly talk to senior executives. Many firms may be reluctant to embrace a system like BizTweet that permits such an open flow of communication.
"Corporate culture is changing and autonomy and creativity is more and more important," says Kang Yu-kyoung, one of the developers at LG CNS. "This is just part of that change."
