NewsGator's 'Spotlight' Solution Package for Social Sites 2010 Pinpoints Top Talent and Awards Merit-Based Badges for Employee Participation

DENVER, June 22, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- NewsGator today made it easier for organizations to identify and recognize top talent with Spotlight, a new solution package for the company's Social Sites 2010 social computing solution. The optional module automates expertise discovery and badging, and operates along with the rest of Social Sites 2010 on top of the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 collaboration platform. Driven by meaningful, measurable participation, users can shine as subject-matter experts and earn merit-based, electronic badges, while organizations can quickly locate, recognize and motivate top performers.

Expertise Location: Plug Directly into Organization's Collective Intelligence

With Spotlight, organizations can quickly and easily identify employees for new projects by using intuitive digital expertise maps. Generated by a hashtag (keyword) search, these maps graphically depict experts around selected topics. In addition to pinpointing project team candidates, Spotlight helps employees find mentors or authorities who can answer urgent questions.

For example, an employee needing help with a business proposal might need an internal expert on say, medical devices. The employee's search on the term will produce a hub-and-spoke expertise map that depicts several experts arrayed around the term medical devices. Those closest to the hub have the highest expertise level. Click here for screenshots.

Drilling down this way can help a project leader quickly choose among several employees for a key role. Authority on a subject is determined by content contributions and feedback (e.g., likes, comments, and ratings), with the organization controlling scoring rules. When individuals demonstrate authority on a topic, Spotlight suggests those employees add the appropriate content hashtags (keywords) to the Ask Me About section of their profiles if they haven't already. This step helps colleagues discover the employee's expertise in the future.

Badging: Harnessing Game Mechanics for Better Business Performance

Spotlight's other new capability set, badging, lets organizations distribute electronic icons that recognize individuals for contributing to business success – making them feel valued and more engaged. Behind-the-scenes rules trigger the earning of badges based on activity and feedback in Social Sites, SharePoint and third-party applications. Organizations have full control over badge types and criteria.

When earned, badges appear in status updates, on user profiles and on leader boards. Typical badges might include Most Valuable Contributor, Networker, Mentor, Innovator, Five-Year Anniversary, Salesperson of the Quarter, as well as specialty badges for departments. Badging is one of social computing earliest examples of using social gaming mechanics for serious business purposes.

"Identifying and promoting expertise is critical in helping collaborative communities improve performance and speed," says Rachel Happe, principal and co-founder of The Community Roundtable, a peer network for community managers. "Tools that help to facilitate this process allow community managers to scale and gaming elements like badges are effective ways to encourage outcomes, all of which increases the performance of the community."

Spotlight offers a powerful set of administrative tools and reporting, enabling organizations to fine tune the identification of experts and recognition of employees.

"As the enterprise becomes connected and individuals generate valuable content, we gain new insight into employees, their contributions and their activities," said JB Holston, president and CEO with NewsGator. "Spotlight harnesses these insights for a more engaging, productive and intelligent business."

Spotlight is available now. For more information, contact NewsGator.

About NewsGator Technologies

NewsGator, a Microsoft Gold-Certified and Depth-Managed Partner, offers award-winning enterprise social computing solutions. Direct integration with SharePoint's business collaboration platform means NewsGator Social Sites runs hassle-free on thousands of organizations' existing computing infrastructures. Capabilities familiar to consumer-oriented social software, such as microblogging, activity streams, social profiles, mobile clients, video, badging, and expertise location, ensure users extract real business value from collaboration and knowledge management activities. Founded in 2004 and with over 2.5 million paid users, NewsGator serves Fortune 200 and government knowledge workers across the globe – including Accenture, Biogen Idec, Charles Schwab, Deloitte, Edelman, Fujitsu, General Mills, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Kraft Foods, Novartis, Unisys Corporation, the United States Air Force, and the United States Army.

Together, SharePoint and Social Sites are propelling the future of productivity - www.newsgator.com.

SOURCE NewsGator