Enterprise 2.0: The answer to today’s business IT challenges

How can social media help solve business tech issues?

 

About this post:

TMT Predictions explore emerging trends that will have an impact on Canadian businesses in 2011. The key theme of this year's predictions is diversity. In the year ahead, businesses and end-users will consume media on many devices, on multiple wireless networks, and they will do their computing on different platforms using different operating systems. In this video, Duncan Stewart describes global TMT practice behind us, we’re well-prepared to offer you industry-leading research, information and insights at www.tmtpredictions.ca. View other videos of the TMT Predictions 2011 event in Montreal. ... >> More

About the author:

Director, Deloitte Canada Research Technology, Media & Telecommunications, Life Sciences and GreenTech
Duncan Stewart is considered to have the best job at Deloitte, as he gets to travel so much. But, can he go the distance? Each year, that marathon man travels to 11 Canadian cities to present Deloitte’s TMT Predictions. After so many years of TMT road shows, Duncan Stewart... >> More

Last week I was talking to a bunch of business folks about how to use social media. Not “if” they should use social media (or SM) — in my view, that debate is over, and the answer is an emphatic yes. One of my colleagues was talking about all the risks of SM. It’s fun stuff to debate, but many people are discussing it, so I steered the conversation in a slightly different direction.

My focus was: what does SM do, how does it work, and what lessons does that teach us about where we should use it? Basically, I wanted to zero in on the value of SM, not the risks. From my perspective, SM does four things: 

1) It collapses hierarchies, allowing management and employees to communicate without worrying about titles

2) It pushes silos together, allowing everybody in an organization to share information better

3) It reaches out to an unknown audience, allowing enterprises to communicate with people who aren’t in the database

4) It can see through time! Well, not really, but it does accelerate the flow of information and make everything happen faster.

My key takeaway was that there are lots of enterprise challenges that don’t have problems along one of those four axes. Database management leaps to mind — using SM doesn’t really help. But look at the average internal company conference call. The CEO speaks, and everyone listens. When the CEO says something halfway through that Bob in Regina doesn’t understand, nobody interrupts, and nothing happens. But if we enable people to go social, Bob can use a real-time Q&A text tool, as in LiveMeeting, and ask for clarification. Way less scary than trying to interrupt your boss, eh? And in real time! 

Some of the considerations and benefits of social — not the same four that I’ve listed here, but related ones — are outlined in a Deloitte report called Enterprise 2.0: Harnessing social media. 

Social media and Enterprise 2.0 aren’t some kind of magic wand that solves all business IT problems. What tech challenge are you trying to solve? Could social be of help?

Duncan.

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