Much has been said about Enterprise 2.0, and related social media applications and many questions have asked as to why some companies limit access or restrict usage of selected tools.
I will assert that there are significant differences between how one operates within a corporate framework and within one's personal space. Furthermore, I will assert that most companies are structured entities and will remain structured. Information is the fuel that drives company success and the management and control of acquisition, deliver, sharing and use of that information is a fundamental key to improving competitiveness, profitability, and growth.
Application of most technologies, including social media applications, is continually evaluated against a companies' business focus and the means to acquire, deliver, share and use information. Moreover, staff members continually assess the utility of tools that may offer them benefits in reducing their personal work loads, making their days easier, and freeing them from low value projects. Indeed, at the staff level, the usage of tools is mostly selfish.
It also seems that the benefits of different Enterprise 2.0 applications differs among staff members or types of companies. I believe that the more customer facing the staff position (company) is, the more they will see benefits in new media application. Companies organized around product development, legal and accounting services, manufacturing and others will see more benefits in tools such as collaboration, and effective document centric applications.
In affect, one size, one solution, does not fit all, whether company to company, department to department or person to person.
As for me, I was involved in early adoption of IM in a large corporation, it worked for me, but suffered badly cross-staff as people could not determine why IM was that much different than email. The question most often heard was Why should I use it? inferring What's in it for me?
As to deployment and use of social media applications, I will assert that many IT departments are making tools available to staff, BUT, neither the benefits of use nor the advantage of using the tool(s) are well developed. Numerous internal questions arise about when do I use it, do I use it instead of XYZ, etc.
And finally, as a structure entity, a good corporation is very much focused on assuring that operations, processes, execution methods, and information flows are INTEGRATED. When an application tends to severe, or disassociate communication links, the well run company will tend to stop or reign in tools or movements that do so.
