Social networks reflect the power of relationships. Sites such as Facebook and MySpace meet the emotional need we have to connect and share with others on a personal level, while Linked In, Xing and the like meet our professional need to mix with the right business contacts.

They are a vast pool of potential customers as well as a source of both personal and professional insights. Not surprisingly then businesses are keen to link their internal systems to these networks and gain single-point access to their data. But that's easier said than done...

The Social Network Interfacing Dilemma

Social sites are about People; well ‘me’ actually, and participation is a matter of personal choice. But business systems are about organizations and Contacts. In fact, they have no concept of people (human beings); instead relationships are with roles that people perform like CEO, COO, CFO etc, rather than with Kay, Bob or Jane...the people in those roles.

And therein lies a dilemma; interacting with social networks means connecting with people personally as well as professionally and knowing which is which. Traditional contact management (e.g. CRM) can't do this as personal and business-related information is intermixed in Contacts records.

TRAXOR: No Dilemma

TRAXOR overcomes the dilemma by separating People and Positions, which reflects the real world, as who people are is of course quite different to what they are. In TRAXOR:

• Personal information and social site data (e.g. Facebook, Linked In, Twitter) is linked to people and role-related information (e.g. job responsibilities, authorities) is linked to positions.
• As people change Positions, their Person data doesn't change and they automatically assume the Position data by virtue of occupancy. However, with Contact records either person or position data has to be updated with every change of occupancy. 

Privacy Compliance

Interacting with social sites for commercial ends has numerous privacy implications. TRAXOR makes compliance much easier:

• Physical separation of personal and business/professional data minimizes confusion.
• Define and enforce your privacy rules; who gets to see what about whom and what.
• People records (personal data) are secured independently of Position (business) data.
• Give system users access to Position data whilst denying access to occupant Personal data.
• Nominate selected items of personal data to display in Position records (e.g. Linked In link, professional memberships) while masking other data (e.g. birth date, dietary preferences).
• Eliminate the risk of data being attributed to the wrong people e.g. when users omit to delete Person and/or Position data relating to the previous occupant when updating a contact record.

Minimize Maintenance

• Personal relationships continue when people leave positions, but professional relationships (e.g. Account Management) usually transfer to the new occupant. TRAXOR handles these situations automatically based on rules you define, reducing tedium, confusion and errors.
• Have a record of prior relationships, to show for example that when Kay was CEO of ABC Ltd she was the decision maker on a major acquisition. Again this is automated in TRAXOR.

Read more about how TRAXOR enables People-focused Relationships...