Social Computing

This blog describes the seventh and last step in the NOBO Virtuous Circle. It takes a look at how thriving alliances leads to social computing.

Social computing is the key enabling tool for NOBO knowledge workers and their alliances. It includes technologies such as social networks, wikis and blogs. These technologies support social interaction and communication. The tool heralds a new age whereby building and maintaining online business relationships can enhance productivity and prosperity across the globe.

Social computing is principally about people but there are four perspectives which help to define the essence of the concept;

• Web as platform - The web is transforming the business landscape. It allows even the smallest of companies to have a global presence and contract for work anywhere in the world. Business is moving. It is moving out from large organisations to more diverse and distributed webs of business relationships. Tim O'Reilly provides a good overview of Web 2.0
• Collective Intelligence - O'Reilly says an essential part of Web 2.0 is harnessing collective intelligence, turning the web into "a kind of global brain". Collective intelligence promises to transform the traditional business ecosystem into a NOBO ecosystem: an ecosystem embracing emotional intelligence, social responsibility and sustainability. However there are many forms of collective intelligence and correspondingly, many "tribes" of its practitioners. This is an abbreviated overview by George Por.
• No formal hierarchy - Web 2.0 is about people and Enterprise 2.0 will be less about less top-down structure and more about structure developed freely through lower-level interactions, say Harvard Business School Associate Professor Andrew McAfee and Socialtext CEO Ross Mayfield. Low-level interactions create pattern and order enabled by Web 2.0 technologies.
• Online Community - The quality of community in tomorrow's wired world is an important concern says Howard Rheingold, a veteran of online comminity. "In order for a virtual community to succeed, the software must have a usable human interface". Equally significant, O'Reilly asserts trusting users as co-developers of social software has become a core competency of Web 2.0.

It is important to stress again social computing is a very powerful tool for knowledge workers in the 21st century. Rheingold observes "Intelligent and democratic leadership is desperately needed at this historical moment, while the situation is still somewhat fluid". It is a significant opportunity for leaders especially pioneering leaders as communities of practice.

My next blog will consider the business challenges facing knowledge workers organising for productivity and prosperity across the globe.