IT support to become a social affair? Service-now certainly hopes so

Service-winter version of Now its on demand software is going to be an interesting experiment in the world of Social Affairs. The general theme: use social networking tools to make support easier and more productive.

The release of the winter was officially available on Wednesday, but was in the hands of some customers from Feb. 4. Key elements include:

Chat functionality so that users can more easily communicate with it. " Groups can also create chat rooms. Hey, get ready for enterprise IT groups "we are fed up with IE6 and XP dammit!".

Service-now Live much like Facebook and Twitter. Users can post things on the wall of IT support. The idea is that users may be able to resolve their problems.

Flows of information that can be tracked with hash tags. IT support and users can follow these streams. Service-now call these flows-the very first zeitgeist IT. "

Add it and this winter release becomes part of the service-now it 3.0 rap, which revolves around making IT service and support business "people-centric".

It is an intriguing idea and one that makes me a little chuckle because I know how many people would rather duck IT support when users are stupid questions. Now those stupid questions can become part of your IT support wall.

We caught up with Director Craig Mr McDonogh, Service-now of product management, to get some other points. Here's the summary:

What gain productivity here? Mr McDonogh noticed that it supports worker can handle requests chat three and five at a time than a call. There will be any distractions? "You could have a situation in which a worker is easily distracted, but I disagree with that," he said. "The benefits are tangible and productivity far outweigh any negative impact".Users will flock to these tools? Mr McDonogh said that the winter version is not a generic collaboration tool. Social tools are specific to the IT Department.What is the biggest victory here? Mr McDonogh said that these social tools can allow users to resolve their problems. "Business users know as much about the technology they are using as your IT Department. We are providing a tool to support peer-to-peer and capture the information in a Knowledge base, "he said. "The community of users has grown dramatically over the past 10-15 years".

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic.