I've alluded before to what for now I'll call eOD (Hyperlinked Mass Collaboration Will Create A Field Called eOD).

Various people with whom I have talked have expressed dislike, or boredom, with the notion of e-anythingmore, saying it's an overworked prefix. Nevertheless, it seems clear that social computing and the use of social software to collaborate in many or most areas of knowledge work will be with us from now on, and will spread and grow (I believe to the point where the use of wikis and blogs, combined with increasingly flexible ERP systems, will be THE way work is done in organization within the next decade).

Many organizations already spend a lot of consulting dollars on team-building, facilitation of "employee engagement", buy-in to and alignment with vision, mission, values and objectives ... all in the search for improving organizational effectiveness. And all that without really considering much the impacts of hyperlinks, the ability to assess and comment and add one's voice directly into the mix, the more subtle effects of collaboration on an organization's culture.

I remember reading that one of the big HR / human capital / organization al effectiveness consulting firms (Watson Wyatt) intended to start a "social media" consulting practice last year. I think that will be problematic, for both Watson Wyatt and its clients.

First and foremost, the use of wikis, blogs and social computing in an organization does not lend itself all that easily to a clearly defined set of solutions, or a defined methodology (other than perhaps acting as a strategic advisor and some coaching, and perhaps a few workshops). Secondly, if I were a client I would not trust anyone to advise me unless the were a wiki-er or a blogger and had been doing it for a while. I don't believe it's the kind of thing you can offer advice about and support with just from a conceptual and theoretical base .. and most consultants in a large firm will be too busy - between billing their butts off to support the firm's business model, selling new projects and then trying to maintain a private // family life - to become very experienced in the use of blogs or wikis. At least up until now ... as their use becomes more and more widespread and they become a core medium for knowledge work, more of these consultants will have more experience with them. But that will still not easily address the firm's business model issue.

And .. with respect to the mapping and tapping of social networks in an enterprise, a la Valdis Krebs or Karen Stephenson ... if it is the case that an organization sees and accepts that the social networks in an organization (and out to its customers) are where the work happens and how things get done, in my opinion this has significant ramifications for the organization's structural assumptions, the compensation philosophy and practices, how performance is measured and managed ... all that consulting stuff.

I expect that there will be a lot of head-scratching about the re-definition of roles, and about how and why more seems to get done when different areas of knowledge are seamed together and put into use horizontally rather than along reporting lines or in vertical silos. It bring to mind a conversation yesterday with Luis Suarez about William Halal's concept of "internal markets for knowledge" and how to use internal department-or-functional-silo "advertising" to help facilitate cross-silo and cross-functional communications and break down the obstacles related to still-too-often silo-ed knowledge and expertise.

I consulted in that area for a long time in a previous career. I began learning about blogging, wikis and social computing about five years ago. I know lots of ex-colleagues who have essentially no clue about blogs and wikis (either how to start off, how to use, how to evolve, and all the nuances of the interactional dynamics discovered along the way). I know several blogging / social computing friends who I believe to be knowledgeable, careful thinkers who can provide useful, practical and wise advice and coaching. But as far as I can tell, those consultants who can do so at the present time are few and far between, thin on the ground so to speak.

That said, I think that a lot of what has emerged from the OD world over the past two decades, such as Open Space, large-scale employee involvement / engagement, team-building and team development, participative work design, coaching, and so on, are very relevant to the demands of the emerging field of eOD.

I may very well be wrong, and will be glad to have someone show me that I am wrong. But at the moment, with respect to the increasingly interconnected workplace and the organizational development issues it engenders, I don't think so.

Jon Husband