One of the trends I've been noticing over the last 6 months or so is the focus of IT solutions being seen as a way of squeezing cost out of a business has faded.  Instead, there is much more of a focus on how to drive innovation to grow the top line and differentiate an organisation in the marketplace.  Obviously, we see Web 2.0 tools and corporate Facebook-style social networking as a great way to drive innovation.

It's always good to see others reflecting this idea.  I've just started reading The Only Sustainable Edge by John Hagel and John Seely Brown.  They write "applications promised to standardize business processes ... and deliver substaintial operating savings along the way".  However "savings no longer suffice: the savings are lost in competition and captured by customers."

From the academic to the conversational, I tend to follow Ed Brill's blog quite closely.  He was asked recently what career advice he would give college (university) students.  His answer was to contribute to innovation.  Why?  Because " in so many industries, innovation is now the competitive differentiator".  Whereas organisations may have previously thought more about who the idea came from rather than what the idea is (Not Invented Here syndrome), social networking tools allow an idea to be developed via the wisdom of crowds by all sorts of people within an organisation, not just those at the top of the pecking order, or even those outside your company.

As Bill Joy (co-founder of Sun Microsystems) said "there are always more smart people outside your company than within it".  Further, there are always more smart people within the company who are not on the board than those who are.  Companies that encourage and nurture ideas wherever they come from, by using a social network irrespective of who belongs to it, will find a truly sustainable edge for the future.

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