Cemex Shift

I am probably not alone - - corporate online computer aided collaboration is typically dreadful.  From Notes to Microsoft's Office Communicator, you enter a a world that has promised much since 1972 (see Corporate networks are starting to bear fruit by Andrew Hill in the November 22, 2011 Financial Times), yet delivered relatively little.  Historically the field of computer aided collaboration  has been much about the technology that networks an organization  and far less on how we understand how organizations actually work (Does anyone actually listen to the staff on what they want to use it for?).  Knowledge management - - the stuff in my head, the stuff in my Moleskine, the stuff in my laptop - - has huge upside practicality for any organization.  The issue has always been the process of integration and application in the context of knowledge management.

Facebook has been a tremendous roadmap for the corporate world - - it has allowed people to see and utilize in detail the nuts and bolts of social collaboration.  Companies like Cemex have seen the future and power of computer aided collaboration with their Cemex Shift.  Cross-border and cross-functional collaboration - - anytime you have 900 people talking online about brown clinker (a cement ingredient) you are entering the socially networked world of the nitty-gritty of knowledge transfer and management.

It is a fair point to remind people that freewheeling ideas from online collaboration still need plans and execution - - it is also a fairer point to remember that the science of business plans starts with the art of an idea.