Prepare to be socialized for profit!

The fast moving wave that is social computing swept through Davos on Thursday in a session titled "Organizing the Unorganizable: Social Computing and the Enterprise." The interactive workshop assembled such luminaries as Paulo Coehlo, Jim Schwartz, Michael Arrington, Robert Scoble, Jimmy Wales, Matt Cohler, and Reid Hoffman, among others. The goal was to address many of the questions around social computing's business applicability, such as: What advantages does it bring? What are its risks and how can they be mitigated? How can it support leadership, decision-making, product development and innovation? And what role does it play in investor/client relations and support?

In the true spirit of social computing (and democracy) we were divided into tables to provide answers to three of these questions. We then voted individually on our preferred answer to the first of three questions, with two further rounds of knock-out. Think of it as a "Social Idol" of sorts. We kicked off with what seemed to be a simple question: What on earth is social computing? My vote went for "Like a marriage, totally desirable but ultimately uncontrollable." That was perhaps only because I didn't pipe up quickly enough with my own definition: "Mimicking the intimacy, chaos and adaptability of families, teams and tribes in software so they can scale to cover the globe." Perhaps wordier than another attendee's take: "Getting pleasure from other people having insight into your private and professional life."

According to the group, the trickiest subject to tackle with social media seemed to be investor relations, due to the legal disclosure and timing issues. But the point was raised that many large companies employ full-time employees, armed with specific software tools, and dedicated to monitoring the blogosphere and tweets. After all, to be forewarned is to be "forearmed" when it comes to an issue that could quickly snowball for the worse (the recent Motrin debacle, anyone?). Or you can monitor those same virtual words to, say, gain an investing edge.

So what are the fundamental advantages of new social media technologies? In terms of usability and appeal, the user interfaces of social technologies easily outstrip those of most existing corporate tools. Chalk that up to its consumer internet genetics. In fact, the acid test is really "no training, no manuals." If you can't get started yourself, it's a failure. What's more, the consumer internet itself is a massive sandpit and training ground for your employees in a particular mode of user interaction (think Google, Yahoo, AJAX). Given that one of the fiercest accusations historically leveled at enterprise software has been the challenges of widespread and effective adoption, good luck to anyone choosing to fight social technologies imbued with this intrinsic advantage.

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