Business case for Social Business Design

In my view the best opinion about Social Business Design or Enterprise 2.0 is from Stowe Boyd, who names Andrew McAfee and Dennis Howlett, as well as the Dachisgroup itself

I like the criticism, the nasty questions, and what that triggers

In essence, all of us / them are already proving that extended global collaboration works. All the discussions, tweets, blogs, conferences, disagreements and the hand wavers (quoting Dennis there) are speeding up the definition of it, its goal and its purpose

Do either of them make money out of that? Not that I've seen any mention of that, but it sure keeps them
busy. It gives them topics to talk about, hold conferences about, build an entire business around. Images of the dot.com bubble come to mind

But, did we ever find a business case for having at least one website per company? That is, before we started to do so...
Did we ever, for getting a mobile phone? For swapping that for an iPone? For getting push-mail (I so very much dislike that term) on it? For being able to Tweet or Blog from and to it?
Weren't we laughing back in the 80's and 90's about computers and desktops? We sure as heck belittled (and cried at the price of) laptops back then

In my last blog post I try to stir up a few thoughts about the IT business model. All I can say, looking back a decade or so, is that whatever was hyped, was tried, and tried again. And one thing was for sure: the greater the investment, in terms of money (licenses!) and time, the least likely the debunkment of a new idea

There, I think, is where Social Business Design is very different: it's (company) cultural changes and investments that must be made, the tools are free-ish

So why wait? Why keep hammering on this one-size-fits-all business case as if Social Business Design were a revolutionary solution to all the problems in the world? It will just help us to do business better, quicker and smarter than ever before. If you do it right, of course. Signing up all your employees for Google Wave surely won't give you much ROI these next two months

I'm a laggard. I've been tweeting and blogging for 6 months now, just about. It costs me an hour or two a day, most of which is "idle time" or private time. And I love it. I've come to know many wise and beautiful people, varying from absolutely unknown to "be known as highly influential". It's helped me form and shape ideas, contribute to my company's image, and my own. And that's just a start

How about you? What has engaging in social networks done for you?