We are all on the same boat, or at least the same ocean. I’ve been looking at the coverage recently from the Web 2.0 summit, as well as just reconnecting with a lot of the bloggers that I typically follow. Proving the true business merits of social media is akin to proving the ROI of Enterprise 2.0.
As usual Andrew McAfee has a terrific post from a few weeks ago, “The Ties that Find”. Here is the part that really grabbed me:
Companies that rely heavily on innovation have always spent a great deal of time, money, and effort on ways to help knowledge workers interact better with their close colleagues. These companies obsess about office and lab layouts, trying to ensure that people flow past each other often and feel drawn to common work areas. They assemble cross-functional teams and try to make sure that these groups have enough of the right kinds of diversity (whatever that is). They hold brainstorming sessions and off-sites where coworkers can interact with the same set of colleagues, but differently.
The overall importance of collaboration is clear, however the true value of collaboration tools is often times hard to measure and it is why there has been such debate around Enterprise 2.0 as a concept. One of my clients (note, this is NOT a plug) is actually working in the collaboration space, but coming from a more traditional value exchange model. They actually have the opposite challenge of talking with the collaboration companies and social networks and showing them how they can institute a proven value exchange to show true business acumen. As the CEO likes to say, and has become a company moniker, you can create and measure value out of collaboration.
Me thinks I need to introduce Mr. McAfee to the client ;)
/kff
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One of the things that I am incredibly grateful for at my office is the track lighting, exposed brick and interesting wall colors. The idea of working in a cube farm would absolutely, positively stymie my creative juices straightaway.
Cheers.
P.S. Thanks for the heads up on your calender. I can think of one that you’re missing , though: The Womma Summit (Nov. 14-15) in Vegas. I think there’s another in Vegas earlier in November, but I can’t think of it for the life of me and Google has (so far) let me down.