An area that Horran and her team are looking towards next is gamification, which takes principles found in video games and applies it to business.

In particular for IBM is the idea of digital eminence, where people are rewarded for taking part in the community. Horran says this will go a long way towards putting a spotlight on up-and-coming leaders within the business.

Horran says IBM uses the lessons from these deployments, and applies these to products it sells to customers. She says IBM will continue to invest in social media as long as it benefits the business by encouraging collaboration. "There were a lot of people who said 'Yes, you can deploy it, but it will never take off'. Boy, were they wrong."

Horran and her team maintain three pillars while working on delivering social business solutions within IBM: