When I talk with CIOs these days, there's one question that comes up again and again: How does it all fit together? How does Social play with my Intranet? How does Social play with my document management system? How does Social play with my ERP system? How do Social profiles play with our HR directory? How does Social play with my CRM system?
CIOs are asking these questions at level of both technical integration and user experience. They want to understand implications for the technology stack, and they want to understand how it all forms a coherent experience for their users--especially their non-power business users.
These questions represent a big change in CIO thinking. As recently as 12-18 months ago, CIOs were still peppering me with questions about business value, use cases, and ROI. That has subsided. When it comes to enterprise social software, CIOs are no longer asking Why. They're asking How.
Maybe it's my McKinsey training, maybe it's my Meyers-Briggs type (feel free to guess), but when I see complex, interconnected questions like these, I look for a simple framework or picture that tells the whole story.
So here goes. Tell me what you think.
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