Could A Workplace Social Network Replace Email And Phone? One Agency Thinks So.

The National Nuclear Security Administration plans to roll out a workplace social network next spring that will replace much of the agency’s emailing and phone calls, Chief Technology Officer Travis Howerton said Friday.

The platform, called One Voice, is a pilot that other divisions of the Energy Department may adopt in the future, Howerton said at a breakfast discussion about federal technology policy sponsored by the Association for Federal Information Resources Management, a government-industry partnership.

The initial launch will be for NNSA’s roughly 45,000 employees and contractors. Howerton described the social networking program as similar to Facebook in that there will be a broadly accessible layer that everyone in the system can look at as well as numerous subcommunities for people in particular divisions or with certain expertise. Accessing the site will require extensive authentication, he said. Additional authentication will be required for specific communities that discuss sensitive information, he said...