Overclocking the Social Computing chip

If you follow this blog, you will know my thoughts on the powerful potential for companies that adopt social computing into their organization. You would also know that application of social computing is much more than simply putting in some cool web 2.0 technologies behind the firewall. The goal of the enterprise 2.0 practitioner, is to harness the positive aspects of enterprise 2.0 while limiting the negative aspects.

One way to improve upon social computing is to reap the benefits of expert facilitation. Still allow for self-organization but mix in a facilitator to really drive value. A facilitator, is a neutral person trained in assisting in the collaborative process. We often think of them as the individuals that lead a discussion in traditional meeting. Proven facilitation methods accelerate collaboration and provide higher quality results. Integrating facilitation with self-organization is a powerful accelerant. Self-Organization still occurs but because the company has a purpose, the facilitator can help the team get to results faster and stay on track.

This is not moderation or governance. Facilitators can identify and overcome barriers to collaboration such as group-think, NDH (not-developed-here) syndrome, expert-thinking, lead-participant, hierarchical hesitation, etc.... They can also drive enough structure to achieve an outcome so it's not just about having a great conversation. In group settings, we've proven that facilitated events can accomplish results that would have normally taken several months into 1-2 days. The same can be applied in social computing.

If you are implementing 2.0 into your company, remember that it's about collaboration, and also about GTD... Getting Things Done...