Mapping Business Relationships

Social networking vendors aiming for the enterprise market—and there are dozens of them—create a variety of tools to express and explain relationships among employees, customers and suppliers. San Francisco-based Leverage Software uses its visually striking "People Map" (below) to show how people relate to each other and meet the business need at hand. The humanoid figures in the image are color-coded as to job function and positioned on the map to show the relevance of their roles or interests to the current task. Leverage allows searches via a variety of parameters, including tagging (identifying words or phrases added by users), rating systems and use of the system by individuals.