Keynote #2 - Stormy Weather

The second keynote was delivered by an ex-BBC employee and was in summary an evangelist presentation of social computing and social media.

He talked us through the pervasiveness of social software and how unproductive it is for companies to ban Facebook within the corporate network. Despite the perception of inanity that enterprises may have of social software and how people use it to tell each other what they had for breakfast (do they? even I have never done that ;-), our presenter argues that in today's world, he would see inanity as a trust builder. In other words, if he cannot find somebody through a search on facebook, he is more and more inclined to mistrust that body. New concept for me, made me stop and think I have to say :-)

We also heard about how social software is a key way to enable sharing of best practice in the corporation and how everybody should have access to it, regardless of whether they are manufacturing, sales, IT ...

Overall, nothing new for us regular readers of social computing articles, and I walked out of that session still unconvinced that social software (the Facebook-type anyway) would add any significant value in a company like ours. In the BBC, where the very heart of the organisation is information and sharing of information is their bread and butter, yes I can understand how social software could enhance productivity in a significant way, but for us, I remain doubtful.

Oh and I could only stare in admiration as he got away with not answering a difficult question at the end of his presentation by looking very grave and saying "This is a point of orchestration", which totally baffled the poor guy who had asked the question.

That moment marked the beginning of BS Bingo for the day, watch the space ;-)