360°IT Blog

Earlier this week, I watched a fascinating talk online by Ethan Zuckerman, a senior researcher at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. In Listening To Global Voices (filmed at last week's TED Global conference in Oxford), Zuckerman made the point that despite the monumental growth of the web and online social networking, the fabled 'globally connected society' has not come to pass.

The reason is that most people use the Internet to access content by (and connect to) people who are similar to themselves, who speak their language, and who have similar interests and concerns. The reality is the web and social networks aren't some global love-in, but (just like the real world) a collection of largely isolated, sometimes ghettoised, communities - each in its own bubble.

Zuckerman highlights some great examples of individuals and groups online who are trying to build bridges between the bubbles - by, for example, selecting and translating relevant local-language content online about their particular fields of interest and making it available to people who would not otherwise have discovered it. And he urges everyone to support such bridge-builders, since we can only make global society work better if we have greater mutual understanding. But although Zuckerman's concerns are about global society, I think there are lessons for business here too.

One lesson for businesses and their IT functions (at least, those that want to be part of a sustainable global market and society) is that they need to support the global bridge-builders in their own organisations - giving them the freedom to make new connections and break down barriers to understanding. And that means connecting with people and looking for ideas beyond your own bubble of peers, traditional suppliers, known competitors, recognised analysts/consulants and big-name national/vertical media.

What that means in practice will depend on your particular organisation's size, scope and goals. It might mean, for example, encouraging multilingual staff to blog and join conversations online in other languages. It might mean encouraging the use of open social networks and the web in ways that help staff broaden their global understanding, contacts and sources of ideas. It almost certainly means that system lockdown and paranoia are the wrong route for most organisations that want to succeed in future, since their staff will remain cut off from other bubbles that could, for example, hold the solution to some problem or the inspiration for some exciting external collaboration.

A more globally-aware, open, collaborative approach to doing business has implications that go beyond IT, of course. This needs to be driven by senior management and fully supported by HR, marketing and other functions. But what's true in macrocosm is also true in microcosm, and just as we need to connect the bubbles globally, there's an equally pressing need to connect the bubbles inside our businesses. The key to that is communication.

If you give everyone in your organisation the ability to form open, conversational connections and groups with anyone else in your organisation (for example, via an internal social network); if you give them the ability to share and comment on ideas or challenges (for example, through internal forums, wikis or blogs); and if you simultaneously support and encourage the cultural change this may require (which is key)... you'll find the bridge-builders (and ideas) will emerge. And then the bubbles will begin connecting themselves, both inside the organisation and in the world beyond.

Jim Mortleman is editor of the 360°IT Blog and an independent business and technology writer/commentator

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Web 2.0, social media, social networking, blogs, collaboration, globalisation, sustainability, diversity, innovation

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