Predictions for the Social Enterprise

March 8, 2013

There is a heartening trend I notice, where people are stepping off populist soapboxes and starting to look at the true implications of Social Technologies on the Enterprise. This blog post I came across by Boris Pluskowski, affirms that notion.

I am not sure about predictions, and whether these things will come true in 2011. Not all enterprises are at the same level of maturity when it comes to their applications of social innovation concepts. The likelihood of them all becoming Social Enterprises is moot. However, will there be increasing realization now that some of the initial euphoria has started to wane?

It is indeed dawning on people that the promised business outcomes involve a significant amount of work on the social facets of the enterprise, and it takes time for those results to materialize. Anyone who has experience implementing Knowledge Management or Collaboration initiatives knows that. However often one states the mantra, that this is more than technology, there is still hope that, that is all it takes. For, in general, we are still hesitant and perhaps unsure of how to design effective interventions that transform the social side of the enterprise.

This time though, unlike in the past, Enterprise Social Innovation will become mainstream and pervasive. Partly because there are no options, and because it provides a significant business opportunity too, businesses will necessarily do what it takes to incorporate the new disciplines. Will 2011 be the year they do it – of that I am not sure.