In posting this debate, I don't think we were trying to say this is where you start, or that this was the only issue, or that this was the only way, but instead striving to bring to light the importance of the two approaches and the impact it would have based on which path you choose. That to truly embrace the disruptive potential of Social Business in your particular industry, that it should be looked at more holistically instead of separately - to understand that the choice may be indeed different for you based on your company's culture, resources, competitive position, readiness and other factors, but to understand that it is A choice to be made. One of many choices as many have offered above.

I reached out to my friend and industry colleague Jeremiah Owyang of the Altimeter Group for his take. He replied here https://twitter.com/#!/jowyang/statuses/162657093193711616 saying

"Discussed the "Bolt vs Baked" with @charleneli @setlinger. Our take? It depends on goals and maturity of company. Often bolt comes first"

To which I replied here https://twitter.com/#!/chrisheuer/status/162761944451907584 , "@jowyang @charleneli @setlinger absolutely depends on readiness, but sometimes slower start leads to longer term impact and value creation"

Jeremiah went on to say here https://twitter.com/#!/jowyang/statuses/162657240652853248

"Secondly on "Bolt vs Baked" weve seen that "Baked" could result in companies actually moving slower --not faster as Deloitte's assertion"

I am not entirely sure what he was referencing here as that is not what I said, and that was not how the debate was framed. It seems almost like the legal question in a trial - "is it possible that you could move slower if you choose one approach over the other?" Sure, anything is possible dependent on many different variables, actions and reactions. If this was in response to my question about how you could imagine creating more value more quickly in my take above if you have proven success with both top down and bottoms up approaches, I would just say that perhaps this was a misunderstanding. My point was to think about how engaging in a market characterized by greater connectivity could accelerate value creation by reinventing your core processes. Perhaps this is still not clear because it is so nuanced, but I'm happy to drill down further to find clarity together.

There are many levels to this discussion Ron, and many different issues within it to debate, this is merely one that I see as highly valuable relative to the potential for impacting the outcome. That said, I disagree with your assertion that to debate this issue is backwards, the two to three issues driving competitiveness create the unique context for the specifics of the social business strategy. How you approach the thinking around such issues is what we are weighing here - whether or not you see social as a single point of attack on those issues in addition to the other areas of strategic differentiation or whether it changes how you attack those issues at their very root.

Thanks for sharing Sandy.

The one thing that I generally find to be true is that it starts in different places inside different organizations based on the individual employees, as much as the culture or even the company's position in the market. Oftentimes with one brave employee willing to imagine a different way of working or a different way of engaging customers.

This debate topic came to light for me when talking about how they were approaching Social Business at a more strategic level, after a certain level of maturity and validation in the company. When they were looking at how to really become a social business across the company instead of within one process or area of operations. There are times when some corporate strategists look at its impact broadly and others when they sought to have others handle it as more of a 'check list' approach. In looking at maximizing long term value creation and gaining competitive advantage, I believe that more often then not, this is best achieved by thinking more holistically and integrating social across the business and its processes instead of as a new process separate of the others.

Another perspective is to think of Social Computing not as a tool for the enterprise, but as a tool for within it for those who want to collaborate with others within more meaningful contexts. While I don't want to get into a lengthy dissertation of the differences, if any between social computing and social media, I do think of social computing as being the infrastructure and the technology that supports social media and collaboration. ie, it's more akin to Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 in public parlance.

Personally, I believe social media is more a verb then a noun, or as my friend/colleague Ian Kennedy says, it’s not so much what it is, as it is what you do with it - that it’s the sharing that makes media social. I would contend that the same is true with social computing, it’s not much the servers or the software, but what employees do with each other through it.

More importantly, it’s about enabling those employees to get their jobs done by accepting the reality on the ground within their collaboration landscape, rather than trying to shape the ways people collaborate based on the map that was designed without the input of the actual people it affects. This is where I have come to what I call, the Five "C's" of Social Business Operating System - Context, Communications, Collaboration, Connections and Creations (thanks to Nicole Melander for great input). While the communications and collaboration tools have always been a part of enterprise computing, what makes social computing unique is the inclusion of an acknowledgment of the importance of the connections. This is not a toy by any means - the more connected the nodes (people) within an organization, and the more so this can be facilitated within the contexts of the daily workflow, the more value that is created.

Agreed about the technical merits, its surely a project gone wrong on many fronts, but the technical issues are not the most egregious. Its much worse then the spin Fast Company is putting on it. They are selling out their integrity in the hopes of building new reach - hitting on a topic that the social media world loves debating and that spammers/scammers/astro turfers love to use for less then honorable purposes.

Love this line from Bob/Editor:

"Our goal is not to trick anyone (though we can't control how others may deploy their efforts)"

Yes you can control it Bob, dont set up the rules to reward those who can trick others, or to encourage others to 'help them win' and certainly dont set up the editorial strategy to reward those with the ability to show they are most popular by interviewing them. This IMHO clearly crosses the line of editorial integrity - equivalent of the long running debate between good music and popular music. It seems FC has given up on trying to be the greatest editorial product and is instead going to play to the people who can make them the most popular by joining the project.

Much more to say on this when I get time...

Thanks mum :)

I am getting a blood test on FRI to see where I am at with the vitamin
D, I think I need to up the dosage to get things back up to where it
needs to be. Apparently its a bigger problem for a lot of people.

Thank you September. Kind of odd to think the most popular post might
be me airing all my personal problems, but its important to
demonstrate that its ok, its the yin to the yang, its part of life -
we cant keep expecting everyone to be perfect and get past our
problems in the world, we must look truth in the mirror and speak to
it honestly.

wanted to emphasize here once again, that the key word here is "USERS" - without getting in huge semantic debate, pls understand I am coming from a position where organizations are not 'users' in this context, individual humans are...

wow 205 comments! I was just sending these all in to a separate folder, but it looks like I need to read through this all and respond to a few folks at some time over the weekend...

thats a fantastic perspective Neville and a great way of explaining the direction we are heading together - it's such an honor to have the chance to work with so many people I respect personally and professionally - thank you for throwing your hat into the ring with us