Social Networking and Balance of Power

Don't be scary. It's not about political power struggle. This is purely about IT. Or can be said so. The social networking has been becoming so popular, easy and fun to do so with on-line tools freely available in the Internet. It connects friends of friends, relates, doing people search, write and collaborate. It operates on many levels, from families up to the level of nations. In conjunction with blogging, it seems to be entering into corporate realms. Once that looks like things for teenagers to play around with, it would be part of a new game for information warfare. I was about to address it to an IT leadership meeting in Pekanbaru, Sumatra as to ultize it for corporate purposes. It was then postponed because of time limitation, giving more for other important stuffs. Some might also still perceive it as just toys.

Kevin Werbach, professor of legal studies and business ethics at Wharton, commented to the discussion on How Facebook Gave Birth to an Industry that "social networking will be the basis for a great deal of innovation and business opportunity". Eager to get a friend of mine into this circle of networking wave, I sent a text message asking her email addrees mentionng that I want to invite her to join Facebook. The answer is "I don't' have one. Please send the invitation to my shop at Tator Cafe, 4th Fl. Pacific Place, Jl. Jend. Sudirman, Jakarta".

Amidst all those millions of people in some parts of the world unaware about this new game, a new set of creative ways of doing things unimaginable before keeps on coming to market. In a corporate language, business is not (would not be) as usual as it should be in the past. IT-enabled innovations are becoming real, fast and more to happen. The roles of IT in corporation would need to be re-defined to find a new seat on the table. Many IT-related services are becoming commodity. A lot of things can be done nowdays in a plug-and-play fashion without intervention of highly skilled IT guys. To some extents, the balance of power has been shifted from IT shop to the hands of users. The paradox seems to be that the more successful of IT implementation in a corporate, the less the business needs from the IT department. This is something that IT leaders in corporations shall be aware of and need to come up with a next generation of IT skills to contribute in a diferent way to the business as before.

Wikis, blogs, and social networking would be new enabling tools inside corporation. The new school of thoughts would be for IT functions to live with it, while transforming its competency into business partnering that orchestrate an array of technology solutions for high-value business benefits. Leave gradually all those low-margin "hard stuffs" of old-day romantism to plug-and-play automation or external parties that woud combine with those from others for their economies of scale benefits.

A new challenge for corporate IT leaders to make that IT DOES MATTER.