Class 8 Reflection

Last class we had a guest speaker come in, Eugene Lee the CEO of Social Text. He spoke about Enterprise 2.0 which I am very interested in due to the nature of my work. It's one of the issues that I keep coming back to in both of my internships.

He spoke of some of the challenges facing communication within organizations and how enterprise 2.0 can help solve them. Specifically he focused on issues between what he called the three silos: 1. existing silos (or groups), 2. across multiple silos within an organization and 3. between outside silos (customer and partners).

In order to be successful in enterprise 2.0 solutions he mentioned two elements:

You have to listen

You have to monitor -for feedback and interaction

Just posting social media tools is not enough. It requires action including asking questions, status updates, sharing docuements and information and then monitoring .

While I personally find the idea of collaboration and transparency a no-brainer within corporate communication across all three silos, I am also aware that for myriad reasons, many businesses are wary of "opening up"

He recommended reading "Transparency- Creating a Culture of Candor"

This is a book I may have to get for some people I work with. I consider one of myself one of the politically isolated in my organization when it comes to being a champion of enterprise 2.0.