A good friend of mine was scoffing at my Facebook posts and said that posting any status update on a social network was a complete and utter waste of time. OK - we’re each entitled to our own opinions - but sometimes - even the most flippant of actions can lead to positive effects. Let me demonstrate using a simple example that happened to me. (I should state that I have no particular preference for Facebook over any other social networking site):

I was travelling to New York a few months ago, so posted an update on Facebook - if anyone was around - they should ping me. An old colleague of mine from Oracle UK posted that he just happened to be in New York and was leaving the next day. We met up at JFK for a beer and had a chat about what was happening at HQ and in the UK. I found out that he had built a composite application using some Oracle applications, wired them up with BPEL and used web center as the front end. The customer (Pharma) loved it - and pretty soon customers in the US were finding out about the solution as well. At their request he had flown over to NY to demonstrate the solution. He got the inside scoop in all the 2.0 work we are doing at HQ. It was good to see an old friend - but we both had mutual benefit from the meeting - we became more aware….

So let’s take a step back and reflect…..
I was heading to NY. I wanted to connect. Using traditional media I could have:

a) phoned everyone I could think of and say “Hi I’m going to NY. Are you going to be there too?”
b) or emailed everyone and ended up on their SPAM filter

Perhaps my friend didn’t think this through enough - but it’s clear that traditional media just does not scale. Recall how we used to live before mobile phones? You had to find a call box before making a call?

Here we see a simple posting on a social network site can have mutual benefit for those parties interested in the post. We could apply the same concept to many use cases in CRM or Supply Chain or other line of business. Instead of posting where I was - I could be posting a request to supply some raw material, or for someone to manufacture a part or for someone to help me spend my loyalty points …..