Like many people reading this I'm an enthusiast for social media and networking. I've also had a couple of decades in business and latterly my career is in a higher education business school. It never ceases to suprise me how a significant number of marketing professionals fail to stop and ask what the organisational purpose of something is. The technological detereminists seem to assume that just because technology facilitates something it is therefore necessarily good for business. That said how the use of social media is 'conceived of' in the first place must determine its role and purpose, and the role and purpose must be specific to the operating context of the organisation. Social media is a 'para' phenomenon it parallels the tangible world it doesn't replace it or do anything necessarily 'different'. Basic questions like are we 'selling' via this medium? are we creating 'social influence' ? are we 'researching' ? are we enhancing 'relationships and service'? need to be asked at the top and not abdicated to the enthusiasms of marketing and technology functionaries alone. How its thought of is how it becomes.
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