I have built a lot of my career on being vocal in different online forums since my first job back in the days. Online bulletin boards is a nice way for people to collaborate and for different types of people to discuss different topics. Bulletin boards and discussion forums are no longer as hot and are replaced by different types of social media. Services such as Twitter and Yammer. Can such services shape or change the culture of a company?

Personally I have been a major contributor to things such as internal bulletin boards, forums and lately company social network things like Yammer. I have also been a big fan of collaboration tools like wiki’s, putting all kinds of stuff in there.

The social network style applications I feel are so powerful and time consuming that they are indeed changing organizations. Information gets distributed in a more efficient manner and more people join in on discussions. All of this is of course great and there is great value to be had from people with different skills communicating and collaborating. However….having used such tools at different jobs I am not so sure that the increase in communication comes without a hitch.

A ‘like’ culture

Digital collaboration tools tend to have a feature to praise suggestions, posts or articles. Usually called ‘like’. What happens if too much of the collaboration is done digitally and through these tools? Does everyone end up chasing the next thing to get likes? Is an idea with tons of like always great? Do you get enough of a diversity of opinions when all the tools provide for is to give positive praise, what about a ‘dislike’-button?

Quality of communication

Digital tools help us communicate broadly very efficiently, but they do not guarantee that this that the meaning of the content being communicated is understood by the receivers. Sure, some people are really good writes but does that mean the receiver automatically understands the intent and meaning better?

I just think these tools are time wasters, energy drainers and do not even get close to being as useful as going around talking to people. What all this boils down to is that I am getting old and I am not getting ‘it’, right?