At Web Directions Government 08, Jason Ryan, Communications Manager at State Services Commission New Zealand, suggested that rather than be afraid of loosing control that we should step up and take control of interaction in our social computing projects.
While, at first glance, this may seem rather contrary to the open, trusting, and free nature of interaction we’re used to with wikis and blogs, Jason was actually pointing to the need for those who are fearful of entering the domain of social computing to do the following:
Social computing tools are becoming the primary way people interact and communicate online. Jason suggested that we need to start developing plans (even if just at a high-level) for how these channels will also become a part of your organisation’s communications strategies, rather than fighting covertly against them.
M
Matthew, great article and an important topic!
This is a hot topic in large companies today and it’s not just about what people are saying about you on public websites. It’s also about what your employees are doing. IT departments today face a challenge as employees adopt blogs, wikis, and tools like QuickBase (I work on the QuickBase product). This can cause a major disruption to the status quo as employees go way beyond the IT sanctioned tools for getting their jobs done.
As with any disruption there is also opportunity. IT managers with strong leadership skills can take advantage of what’s happening to help improve employee productivity while maintaining good security over the company’s intellectual property. Here is a story we hear repeated over and over again regarding QuickBase.
An employee brings in QuickBase to solve a problem. Let’s say it’s managing and coordinating a supply chain of 20 different vendors. There was no IT solution for this problem and IT was not staffed to implement something. The employee didn’t bother to tell IT what they were doing. Fast forward three months and now QuickBase has expanded and is used for Project Management, meeting agendas and action items, and candidate tracking. It’s up to 50 users. Now IT notices. Here’s the IT conversation:
IT is concerned about storing confidential company info on Intuit’s QuickBase website but then they realize that prior to this employees were emailing spreadsheets to partners with a lot more company info and completely unencrypted. Second, the IT person realizes that they use TurboTax and that they are storing their tax data with Intuit. Lastly, they realize that with QuickBase they can watch all the traffic and usage that was a black box before.
The big insights that come out of this for IT are:
- Transparency breeds accountability. When employees are collaborating online they will self-police and do the right thing. If they don’t, they are accountable to all the other people who are online with them.
- By embracing QuickBase IT can push many of the business requests for systems back to the business and play more of a coach and enabler role, thus allowing them to focus on strategic projects for the company.
- Web 2.0 is here and they can either let it happen to them or take control and lead the charge.
The pace of innovation in Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 technologies is incredibly exciting and offers huge opportunity for the people that can see how to take advantage of it. Unfortunately, it also can cause fear for those who are committed to the existing way of doing things… leading to the knee-jerk reaction Matthew mentioned.
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Be sure to catch Bill Ives' ongoing review series in which he looks at online, sharable database apps. The focus of Bill's reviews: web-based business software that enables companies and individuals to better organize, track, and share information, as well as better manage projects, processes and workflows.
Among the Web-based tools he's reviewed: Zoho, QuickBase, and TrackVia.

Or, if you’d like to get all the tips now, click here to request a copy of the white paper – “7 Ways to Optimize Project Team Productivity: Using Customizable Web-based Software to Your Business Advantage.”.
The AppGap has hosted a series of discussions with leading thinkers and doers intended to illuminate how new apps and approaches are changing the way we work and help companies and individuals implement better collaboration, project management, and productivity practices and solutions. Access, via the links below, the recordings, each about an hour long, of the discussions.
- 5 Big Ideas for Getting All That Work Done
- Should Your Business be Friends with Facebook
- The Future of Work
Need help in getting organized? Want to keep things from falling through the cracks? Check out this free and simple to use online "To-Do List" called Intuit Task Manager, offered by our sponsor Intuit QuickBase. Sign-up is easy so you can get started with it right away.

Intuit's QuickBase, the sponsor of this blog, has just been named an Editor's Choice by PC Mag. Check out the review which calls QuickBase a "a surprisingly simple and elegant application."
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