As is often my wont, this morning started with a quick glance through some Tweets of interest, especially those of some of my favourite tweeters. Among other things, I noticed Dennis Howlett flogging one of his cherished themes: the BS that is talked about “social business”:

That prompted a terse response from Stowe Boyd:

Dennis smacked that through the covers (that’s a cricket reference, for those unfamiliar with it – like hitting a home run in baseball):

At this point, Martijn Linssen and myself hijacked the conversation:

These are some of the themes I’m trying to work through in the New Enterprise discussion – what changes can and will “social business”, “Enterprise 2.0” or whatever name you want to give it really make within our enterprises? Dennis and Stowe appear to be diametrically opposed, but paradoxically Dennis himself is a prime example of a social business, having successfully applied social media tools in his own work, as has Stowe.

Social media benefits in enterprises will be situational (a flash way of saying “it depends”) – smaller, newer, knowledge- or creativity-based companies will probably see benefits much more quickly. Likewise, even within enterprises, social business principles may find departmental niches that work well. But there IS a lot of hot air being vented around the extremes of both viewpoints, and while it makes for an interesting and entertaining discussion, I believe the truth lies somewhere between those extremes.