The democratization of an organization is a change frought with uncertainty and fear.  We might now we need to do this “social networking” thing because we thing that’s what others are doing but we don’t have a clue to how to go about it.  If the perception of control is given up overwho can post what information the notion of dramatically increased risk is a hard one to stomach.

We keep hearing about the profound demographic shift that will soon be upon us couple with the fact that the generation coming up to replace them is “wired” and work in a completely new, unstructured, unbounded way.  How can we find the balance between mitigating the risk of these people retiring while creating a work environment that the best and brightest want to be a part of?

Tough question.

First of all I’m not that convinced that this new generation of non-conformists will lead an overnight shift that breaks down organizational hierarchies and turns top down organizations into bottom up democracies.  This is partially due to my experience in a large global manufacturing company that prides itself on being progressive and an excellent place to work…which it is.  I’ve been pushing the power of the idea of social networking for a few years and while there is some traction there is a long way to go.  I’m not convinced people have the same social networking expectations inside the firewall as outside.  Personal life is typically more unstructured than professional life and people know and expect the difference.

Also – if we unleash power of social networking what do we do with the information?  Tags, communities, meta-data – how do we mine it for our competitive advantage?  More thoughts on this in an upcoming post.

We must remember that the tools of social networking are based on technology.  The culture and rate of change of an organization is driven primarily from the top.  These are the same people that will be retiring in a few years and either don’t understand or don’t give a hoot about social networking.   In order to be effective at articulating the value of this change its imperative that we first deeply understand our core business and secondly are coherent enough to develop a strategy around tying the benefits of social networking to the achievement of business objectives. 

Which means the first step is hiring smart, articulate, technology-savvy, enthusiastic people to help your business succeed over time.  But I guess we have always known that…