Can Social Business help IT?

What is wrong with this picture?

Picture a business that trains people for new roles. Now picture that company performing the training online only. Next the sales people who get more people to sign up, get rewarded. The people doing the training get paid for their knowledge that they impart in the training. The people supporting the online infrastructure...don't exist. It's all in the cloud. There is one person who makes sure the files get saved and stored in the right place. Everything else is automated with a call center handling support for the students.

A simple example yet one with is Utopian in nature to big business.

This is the world we are heading towards.

We have to change it if this is not the end we choose.

How do you change it? Can we change it? Is resistance futile?

CIOs, aside from saving their own skins, have been trying, and not always well, to show how IT can and does not only bring value but benefits the company as a whole.

Now the time has come where the ability to promote the IT department has never been easier. Yet, where are the CIOs now? Where is your IT department?

They may be time to save you still. If you want people to know what you do, blog about it, video it, podcast it, text about it, tweet about, skype about it, set up persistent chat rooms for IT support. Use the tools your company has already, built in and free usually. This is your chance to do PR for yourself. It is not a forced issue or requirement but it must start with you from within.

On the other hand if you think this is all just a way for people to goof off at work, and I am talking to you, the CIO, then your own job is probably going to disappear soon as well.

You have been begging for people to listen to you and understand what IT does for them. You finally have a perfect way to do this. You can't be serious that you still don't get it enough to not only let IT use it, but let everyone in the company use it, can you?

If you are afraid this will lead to the hastening of your demise then you also do not see where this will lead your organization. This is your chance to change the course, lead by example and make your organization the envy of your competitors.

Don't blow this chance, it may be the last one you will get. Social Business is NOT the Holy Grail, but it may be the chance you have been looking for.