Great post Paula. You hit the nail on the head in so many ways. This really is about "informed change" not "command and control". Love the concept of exchanging conversations that are transparent, persistent and accessible. I do agree with Sameer, that thinking about to apply social computing to specific business problems might prove a more productive approach than a one size fit all approach in many cases.

Joe,

I am a relative newbie in the Enterprise 2.0 world, having joined Helpstream early this year as their CMO. But I have been in Silicon Valley for coming on 20 years now and have seen many debates around ROI over the years.

I spent quite a few years in the unified communications space. The discussion on the ROI of E 2.0 resembles in many ways the discussion in that world that has been going on for some time. .

A common thread I have seen in many of the E 2.0 ROI blogs over the last several weeks and months by Hinchcliffe, Howlett and others, is the need for E 2.0 vendors to focus on a specific business problem if possible. At Helpstream we focus entirely on customer service for example and have done a study on the ROI of our solution with our customers to address just this issue.

I look forward to following the discussion and sharing any thoughts that might be relevant.