Getting social at work? IBM report says businesses like the trend

An interesting finding in the 2011 Tech Trends report from IBM (NYSE: IBM) is that organizations are beginning to use social business software rather than traditional collaboration software.

“When we asked our survey respondents why their organizations would want folks to use social business software instead of traditional collaboration tools (I’m looking at you, email!), they were pretty clear on the benefits of getting social to do business. And most of them want it all: improved collaboration, discovery, idea sharing, networking, file sharing and storage, plus nailing down that messy inbox,” IBM says.

The benefits? Tops is improved collaboration . Next is efficiency. Here is how more than 1,000 IT professionals responded to this question:

“My organization uses social business to:”

• Improve employee collaboration, 57%

• Efficiently find people and resources, 49%

• Generate and share ideas, 48%

• Connect with other networks, 42%

• Centralize file storage, 40%

• Decrease email clutter, 31%