i have been talking to a few enterprise i.t people about social media lately and the responses i have been getting have been interesting, but not unusual.

i am an enterprise solutions architect so i am used to answering tech questions from a diverse bunch of people on technology. this one particular area is quite interesting to talk to people about.

however, what i have been finding is that people are asking how they can use it to sell things or push a message out there. the difficult part is explaining that it is not just another form of media. not just another newspaper or format. social media is:

1. a disruptive technology
2. a two way street
3. not a short term sales solution

what does this mean?

it is a paradigm shift

you can’t think of it as tool to push a message, because messages come back. that dialogue needs to be managed. there are no widely accepted models that can be applied to manage these technologies. you cannot deploy an enterprise management solution to manage and scan the conversations of all employees on facebook, myspace, or friendfeed.

the corporate security guy would go in shock and never recover at the thought of the amount of information  so freely available. he would be comforted by the p.r 1.0 girl and the legal team who would also be sobbing in the corner.

enterprises, especially the big ones are geared very well towards adopting and leveraging incremental advancements in existing technology, paradigm shifts cause them to stumble.

enterprises have no communications models for social media

social media is about engaging fully and transparently with your publics. what this means precisely is not really known yet.

should this mean that every employee should engage directly with members of the public? it could, it’s a scary prospect under current models but what about the future? could this be possible? could enterprise 2.0 be completely transparent?

there are no models now, so enterprises cannot adopt it. smaller organisations might. they are often much more agile and open to newer ideas. the models would probably be forged there and then brought into the enterprise.

you cannot write a business case for “social media”

there is no immediate return that can be put onto a roi matrix.

if you cannot prove a return, you cannot get funding for your project. most cio’s manage business as usual i.t operations. there may be some incremental innovations, but this generally involves buying a product, where there is a known rate of return.

it is more difficult to do so with social media. a long term engagement with your publics does not render well on an i.t driven business case.

note the last point.

i.t driven business cases in most enterprises generally lack “true” innovation, true innovation must come from the business. in my next post i will tell you why.

so when people ask me about social media in the enterprise at the water cooler now, i say: “book a meeting room and I’ll step through it with you.”

there are no 30 second answers to this one.