Go Beyond The Database: Get Talking

From the 80′s through to the 90′s, business found competitive advantages in deploying technology to either cut costs or speed up transactions. In the mid-90′s came the move to networking technologies exploded as the Web began to go mainstream. Business slowly embraced the Web by building websites that offered little interaction, were mostly one-way communications and offered purchasing ability.

But as human beings one of our fundamental drives is to connect and communicate. We always form groups; to either share ideas or to complete a task, big or small, short term or long term. The point is, humans always communicate and always form into groups. Always. The more effective a business is at communicating internally, the better it performs.

The newest technologies to improve internal and external communications is social technologies. Tools such as blogs, social networks, microblogging, video and photo sharing. Businesses that recognize these tools go beyond one-way broadcast messaging and can be used to gain competitive edges are ones who will succeed in the future.

More compelling is that spread of the Web. It doesn’t mean being wired into a desktop computer anymore. The Web today is so pervasive and ties into mobile devices.

The first adoption wave of IT in an organization was essentially to build databases with an illogical communication tool thrown over top – email. Companies who figure out how to use social technologies to communicate better, not just internally, but externally with all stakeholders (suppliers, government, customers, partners) are the ones who will gain the next competitive edge.