If all you have is a Social Hammer…

“When will you stop giving us more tools and start making our lives simpler”? That was the question I was asked during a casual meeting last week with some classmates from the University of Chicago. The inquiry came when we were talking about Social Media for the enterprise environment.

That was a very interesting perspective since, from my point of view, social media tools actually simplify our life, or perhaps more precisely, allow us to do more, learn more and connect more within the same given timeframe — and so long as Earth doesn’t change its trajectory or rotation, we will continue to only have 24h a day. Yet, that was a valid question from someone who was really feeling the pain of the number of new stuff available. A person who could not see the value of all that.

So I started exploring the point and the reasons behind that question. And then he said: “I can’t find someone to show me the tangible business benefits or return of investment of these tools. It’s always about ‘not staying behind’, ‘increased collaboration’ or vague ‘productivity benefits’ only. I have to decide whether I invest in R&D capabilities, marketing, human resources or giving ‘Facebook’ to our employees. I believe my decision is pretty obvious”.

Continues @http://aiimcommunities.org