Why do the least Social People in the Enterprise pick the social tools?

One of the results from the research I did over the summer (Social Networks in the Enterprise) showed that about 40% of the time it was IT that was testing social software. When I see IT testing some type of social or collaboration technology I often wonder what they are testing? First they usually test to see if the software (or SaaS) is compatible with their current networked environment. Second, they usually test for security. Often they will look at price. If the software passes these 3 tests, then it is usually recommended by IT.

The same study also told us that most people believe that top management are the decision makers for social software, but that many CEOs do not yet understand the value of transparency, or even the value a social network can bring their business.  Therefore, they probably go with IT's advice on social software (since they tested it), and the organizaton ends up with social software that is compatible, secure and priced reasonably, but what they don't necessarily get is software that is easy (1-2 cliecks to do anything in the application), and that can be applied to some of the critical problems in the enterprise.

Although our study did show that currently social networks are not being used with the 6 critical processes with collaborative leverage (online communities and traditional collaboration technologies were used), I believe (and some of the case studies in the report support this) that social networks, as they become more familiar to the enterprise will begin to be used for these critical processes.

Another interesting result from the study was that social networks (in the enterprise) arise organically (without management support or funding) about 25% of the time. Humana insurance is a good example of this. You can be sure that IT were not the leaders in this, but IT people were invited to be part of it. Most often the social network was started by someone further down in the organization who (had the tool for personal use) thought it might be a good way to solve a work problem, as more and more organizations are geographically distributed). Social networks seem to arise (organicly) at the point of need and expand outwards, only a top down approach to social networks usually has IT involved in the selection of the technology.

My advice is not to allow the least social people in the enterprise pick you social technologies, but instead have a cross functional team that includes IT, but also includes: HR, legal, compliance, and line of business managers, or process owners. These teams seem to have the most success with social networks in the enterprise.