Great posting and analysis by Euan Semple about the challenges of making social computing work in organisations.
His thoughts on 'It's not about the technology' ring true with me!
This is where I learned my biggest lesson with what we did at the beeb. I realised that this is about a whole new way of looking at our roles as individuals, our relationships with each other and the organisations we create to enable us to get things done collectively. Amazing things happen when you have an environment where people can more easily see what they each know, form associations and work together. It starts to affect who has influence and how they manifest that influence. People who might have been remote geographically or politically but who know lots about a really useful subject suddenly have an impact on the organisation that was previously impossible. Using wikis to discuss, reach agreement and actually carry out work without having to spend time in meetings or traveling or simply not having enough information to make good judgements is enormously effective and compelling.
In my view, organisations will be forced to recognise that much of the new talent will have grown up using social media. It'll be 'de-facto' standard. Simply ignoring it will be extremely perillous!
