Carol Rozwell

It was my pleasure to moderate a panel on social media at the Portals, Content and Collaboration Summit in Baltimore last week, along with my colleague Tom Austin. The three panelists – Jeanne Holm from NASA JPL, Ron Desi from UB/Towson MBA Program and Walton Smith from Booz Allen – each brought a unique perspective to the challenges and the opportunities presented by social media.

Here is a summary of my key ‘take-aways’ from the discussion.

• social media has affected a communication shift that brings the content to where the conversations are happening
• it allows people to create relationships that might not have been possible otherwise
• managers set the social norms in an organization so they need education on their role relative to social media
• lawyers can be very helpful in establishing a balanced social media policy
• a well-written policy will not stop people from being stupid, but someone’s stupidity on social media will be evident very quickly
• social media is here to stay, so skip the pilot – instead create a prototype, find some early adopters, determine what features people need and provide that.

Despite the fact that the panelists all saw the value in social media, nearly 75% of the audience said their companies blocked access to social networking sites from work. Even so, people indicated they were using social media for work and personal purposes.

For more information on what the panelists think about knowledge exchange and social media, you may want to check out:

Jeanne Holm’s knowledge management work at Nasa

Ron Desi’s Top Ten Reasons to Ban Social Media Access at Work

Walton Smith’s podcast

Happy networking!

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Category: Social networks     Tags: Collaboration, Knowledge management, Social media, Social networking

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