H&K signs deal to deliver Cogenz offering

Singapore - Hill and Knowlton (H&K) has signed a global partnership deal with Cogenz, a London-based provider of Enterprise 2.0 software - the service will be available in H&K's Singapore office. 

Cogenz is a hosted enterprise social bookmarking service through which companies are able to harness the collective intelligence of employees using social software - the application was developed by a H&K employee with H&K supporting and taking an option in the company due to the trend of clients exploring secure ways to share information and bookmarking.

The Cogenz enterprise bookmarking service allows geographical and functional workgroups to collect and organise web-based intelligence and H&K will act as the exclusive public relations industry partner for the service, providing clients with expertise in engaging employees using social software.

"The main benefit we are seeing at a macro level is how it exposes implicit connections and expertise of individuals and interests. Self-organising communities of interest are forming and we need to think about how we can leverage this trend at a corporate level - unlike other social software, enterprise social bookmarking does not require a huge change in behaviour from users. Even our least IT literate employees understand the concept of bookmarks of favourites, so most of them get it straight away," Genevieve Loriant, marketing and business development manager, Hill & Knowlton Asia Pacific said.

Loriant said as the service is new, clients have yet to sign up - at the moment, H&K is relying on early adopters such as those already familiar with Delicious to drive usage and adoption. The service is not limited by industry or audience and in Singapore, will be offered to Hill & Knowlton's clients through the Digital Practice team, which oversees the incorporation of social media and other digital platforms at the public relations consultancy.