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There's a huge difference between the enterprise world and the social media community. While there are many signs of life on the social side, the rank-and-file Global 1,000 seem for the most part to be clueless. That's not an indictment, just a statement of fact, and maybe opportunity. At the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston last week, I got an eyeful of the reality. It's still very early in this market's evolution. The vendors are all lined up, including the small innovators and the big companies looking to cash in by being fast followers.
I think it's important to differentiate between personal social media, which in many cases is just a time-waster, and social media (or perhaps more appropriately called networking technology) applied to business purposes: communications, tele- and videoconferencing, webinars, instruction, just as a starter list. For example, why would you need Twitter when you already have instant messaging? Then there is also the very real concern about security in the social media environment. I'm sure there will be some version of enterprise social media but frankly I believe decision-makers in the world of enterprise communications are being wise by not rushing headlong into this area. I can see the first applications being in customer-facing areas -- CRM, Marketing, anything that establishes a true dialogue with the customer -- but in other areas, maybe not so necessary.
