Benz Blog: Employee Engagement & Collaboration

Social Media Reduces the Risk of IT Failures

I just read this article from Michael Krigsman about using Social Media tools to reduce IT failures (his overall blog theme.)  He has consolidated most (all?) of his thoughts on the topic of social media for the enterprise and it's a good introduction to the many pitfalls of implementing this powerful new technology. 

Basically, IT should actively participate in the effort to plan for and deploy social media for the organization.  Further, social media should be viewed as a business enabler, not something to be avoided or minimized.  Lastly, when properly implemented and supported, social media can improve teamwork and knowledge sharing.

My experiences with corporate IT are hit-or-miss...in a large, matrixed organization, skills are so compartmentalized that it becomes exceedingly difficult for a small group to effectively evaluate, plan and implement any new technology platform.  Combine that with organizational resistance across departments and hierarchy and that dull thud you hear is coming from a dead horse.

One approach is to actually learn from the younger employees who overwhelmingly already use social media tools on a daily basis - in or around the corporate IT structure.  Ask them what they use and how.  Then leverage the existing best practices and networks that are already available as a starting point to build a new corporate information workflow as an organic, employee-driven initiative.  Now that's a real web2.0 solution!