Firms 'miss' social site success

See BBC Article http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7501073.stm

Social networking sites are now big news. Part of their appeal is the way in which they meet a fundamental human need to communicate. While sites such as Facebook and YouTube have captured the public imagination in a variety of positive (keep in contact with family and friends worldwide etc.) and negative (bad people from all over the world will steal your identity etc.), it is worth remembering that less flashy Bulletin Board Systems and news groups have been used to keep communities of enthusiasts in contact since the 1990's.

That the principle of on-line networking works is not in dispute, but accusing the business community of not seeing the potential is rather harsh. It is easy to say "set up an on-line community" but not so easy to actually achieve that goal. I say this from the perspective of personal experience. Part of the original vision of the UK Knowledge Transfer Networks (KTNs) was to set up and mobilise UK businesses and Universities (the research base) in an organised on-line community. As Director of the IPM KTN I know how hard that challenge is to achieve. Cyberspace is littered with the remnants of on-line one stop shops, portals and other little used shells of would be communities; the KTNs have at least had the advantage of funding and and an attempt at large scale co-ordination through a unified on-line offering, but I will be first to admit that we still have much more work to do before we have truly established an on-line community.

Even though I buy into the vision of on-line business communities I know that for them to become a reality, it will take more than that vision to bring them into being. The successful on-line communities to which I belong are united by common interests, rather than personal gain, and the desire to share knowledge and experience rather than just to use it. Effective use of social networking sites for business use is going to require much greater openness amongst commercial organisations than is usual at the moment. I believe that many businesses can see the benefits of everyone jumping into the open exchange of information offered by social networking, but are afraid that the first to jump will be disadvantaged by unequal information exchanges.