How GE has successfully rewired their corporate DNA to function very effectively as a social computer.
Submitted by: John Warner on Jul 26, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Tagged with: Innovation, social_networking
Source: GE
This is an interesting article about how over the past eight years GE has developed an internal, enterprise-wide, social networking platform. Inside GE they describe this as the "post-email world."
- When you get a glimpse of the future at work, it makes you take a moment to reflect on a few things.
- First, the functionality they'd deployed was many years ahead of anything I've seen or heard about in the marketplace. More importantly, it was developed and deployed in response to documented business needs from proficient users who'd made this platform the core of their business life.
- Second, they invested early and continuously. Sure, they had to fight for budget and recognition just like any other business investment, but their sustained commitment had obviously paid off in a tangible, sustainable business advantage.
- Third, the rest of us are now at a substantial competitive disadvantage if we decide to compete with GE. Thankfully, they're a customer and not a competitor. Because they were so early, they probably had to invest more than those of us slowpokes who are relative noobs to all of this.
- Fourth, it gave me tangible proof that social media / social productivity / social computing can work at mega-scale -- and I had a greater case that these techniques would re-make how business gets done in the future.