The Vogons Have Noticed Social Media

Cisco Systems recently published a report on Social Networking in the enterprise. Its an interesting read in that the interviewees discuss how social networking is helping corporations interact better, more completely, more successfully with customers and partners. But the report also says that, though this is a nascent, just starting phenomenon sure to generate significant success, out next move should be governance and control.

Cisco's report is saying that just as Web 2.0 is establishing what amounts to a "critical mass" of business and market purpose and value our bureaucrats, our Vogons (see the bottom of the post for more), should investigate and write up their reports on appropriate control, in triplicate.

Such a suggestion would be putting the cart before the horse to Dick Nolan and Chuck Gibson. They long ago introduced the concept of sigmoid curves (of spending) to explain how organizations investigate, adopt, spread and then professionally manage new technologies in support of organizational goals.

Adapted from "The Four Stages of EDP Growth" by Cyrus F. Gibson, Richard L. Nolan,
HBS Publications, Prod. #: 74104-PDF-ENG

By my reading most companies are in the early part of the contagion phase. They've established that there are ways to use Web 2.0 that produce good business results and they want more. Since its easy to install and adapt, and since its not expensive, most companies will be doing quite a bit more of it in the near term.

Cisco's report has quotes on this. "The rise of the connected consumer is driving a market shift in the enterprise,creating 'people-powered business' where social networking tools and collaborative technologies are the propeller of the next-generation of productivity and bringing about a fundamentally different leadership model." And, "successful companies in the 2.0 world are those that are tying.... social networking initiatives into their wider strategy and are able to create meaningful connections with their communities."

A Cisco interviewee, Baz Khuti, Chief Architect at Emerson, talk, about how "effectively improve the speed and agility by which we can make business decisions and interact with our partners. Additionally, they provide insight into what's going on within different parts of the organization, as well as customer usage of our products and market trends."

There will be a time for control. There are some concerns now about security and the use by neer-do-wells of the interactive nature of Web 2.0 to introduce worms and viruses into corporations. But we are just now ramping up into full use and meaningful benefits. This is the time to invest not the time to administer and count beans.

During the front end of the Contagion phase set out an overall plan, major initiatives and a budget (that you will not be overly surprised if you surpass it). Don't worry too much about how managers around the company are pursuing their own initiatives. You won't be able to find them, you haven't the controls and the time to do so, and you actually don't want to stifle innovation experiments that your intelligent, professional, market-oriented, capable managers engage in. If a project is large enough, and few will be, it will come under standard expense and capital management reviews. If you can allocate the time and money to an effort within your budget then pursue as much of a financial justification as you need to support the effort.

By the time Contagion is coming to a close everyone in your organization will understand that you are collectively spending significant time and effort on Social Media and doing so in myriad ways. You'll likely have had one noticeable failure and/or one truly impressive budget overrun. You'll also have so many ways in which you're using Social Media that it has become part of the way business is done (watch the front end of this interview with Tony Scott, Microsoft's CIO, where he discusses both Social Media inside his enterprise).

There will be LOTS of successes. What you don't want to do before you've hit critical mass is slow down your Stage 2, your contagion, with the formulations of Stage 3, control, before its time to implement them.

From Wikipedia about Vogons -

The Vogons are a fictional alien race from the planet Vogsphere in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams. Vogons are slug-like but vaguely humanoid, are bulkier than humans and have green skin, although the movie has them have greyish white skin . Vogons are described as mindlessly bureaucratic, aggressive, having "as much sex appeal as a road accident" and the writers of "the third worst poetry in the universe". They are employed as the galactic government's bureaucrats.