Boston and London, UK, 24 June 2008 – Trampoline Systems, social intelligence for business, today revealed the results of global research offering insights into the future of enterprise social networking. The research, carried out in the US and the UK, revealed that 88 per cent of businesses are eager to start using social networking although many are looking for more business functionality than in consumer social networks. UK businesses are eager to deploy social networking in the enterprise with 94 per cent of those surveyed believing social networking would be beneficial to use at work compared to 82 per cent of US organisations.

 Trampoline Systems surveyed industry executives in the US and the UK for their views on how social networking could be useful for businesses in the future. 84 per cent reported that social networking would help with sharing knowledge and expertise with colleagues across the organisation and 68 per cent would like help with finding relevant information. Those surveyed are also eager to open up connections within the business with 69 per cent citing they want to be able to interact with colleagues that they don’t already know personally.

 But businesses are still holding back from fully embracing these new technologies. The top concern of businesses in the UK and the US is that social networks are too separate from other IT systems, requiring employees to enter information about themselves into the social network and distracting them from their work. This is despite the fact Trampoline’s enterprise social networking tools automatically update a user’s profile using data from their everyday work including email. 75 per cent of large organisations in the US and 66 per cent of UK businesses believe that a social network which integrates internally with a company’s email system to automatically update a user’s profile would be an extremely useful communications tool.

 Charles Armstrong, Chief Executive Officer of Trampoline Systems, says: “This survey confirms that enterprise social networking is firmly established in corporate thinking on both sides of the Atlantic.  Interestingly, it also verifies that executives are increasingly concerned about the drawbacks with conventional systems that rely on manual profile updates. In the current economic climate, businesses are under more pressure than ever to improve the way they work and fully harness the talent and experience in their workforce. Intelligent social networks that automatically stay up to date with new expertise and contacts offer a simple and powerful route to achieving this."

 Overall, Trampoline’s research highlights that businesses in the US and the UK are recognising the strategic and business value of enterprise 2.0 technologies. This is backed up by Forrester Research which reported in April 2008 that the enterprise 2.0 industry will be worth $4.3 billion by 2013.

 Trampoline undertook the research at this year’s Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston and Web 2.0 Strategies event in London and surveyed 111 delegates.

About Trampoline Systems

Trampoline Systems provides social intelligence for business. Trampoline’s SONAR Suite is 360° enterprise social computing for employees and managers. Metascope provides advanced analysis and visualisation for ONA/SNA professionals. Trampoline’s clients include the Raytheon Company, a top 5 global management consultancy and the UK Foreign Office. Accolades include the Red Herring 100 Europe 2008 and Oracle’s EMEA Innovation Award 2007. Trampoline raised $6m in Series A investment from the Tudor Group in March 2007 and was named a “Cool Vendor” by Gartner in 2008. For more information please visit www.trampolinesystems.com.