In a classic case of “If you can’t beat them, join them” thinking, large corporations (like the one which employs yours truly) have co-opted various external social media (like the kind that are actually fun) for internal use. This only AFTER blocking most external social networking websites (i.e. Facebook, Friendster, MySpace, as well as ALL web-based email sites- YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter and others to join them, surely). Under the guise of facilitating collaboration, team building, and increased productivity, I know of at least 2 large companies (with head counts of 100k+) that have spent ungodly amounts time and money on their new “Web 2.0 social media initiatives”. It seems our deluded superiors expect the water cooler to be abuzz with talk of designing personal “web spaces” in the “new, exciting, collaborative infrastructure”. Woo hoo! Not. (Not only that, the interface for designing/managing said spaces are a usability nightmare-even for a moderately experienced web dude like myself. It leaves me wondering: “WWJND?” That is, what would Jakob Nielsen do?) From the time they announced it to the time they launched it, my bullshit radar went from BullCon3 to BullCon2. LAME, LAME, LAME. (I am saving BullCon 1 for the pinnacle of bovine dung...)American Corporate management reminds me a lot of those quirky, bearded ex-hippie college professors you always liked: Eccentric, idealistic, and often funny, yet a bit removed from the real world. To hear these internal communications people evangelize and extol the virtues of social networking via the intranet is laughable (and a little vomit inducing in the mouth). Now that I think about it, other than being fun (and a time sink), there isn’t a glut of virtue in external social networking either! (Full disclosure: I have been on and off the Facebook wagon. Surely a latent field in psychotherapy…)
I racked my brain trying to come up with a childhood analogy to what today’s “forward thinking” corporations are doing with this new Web 2.0 strategy. Then it hit me: kindergarten toys! I don’t know about you, but I was none to pleased when it came time to kiss goodbye the carefree, year long summers that I had enjoyed the first 6 years of my life. But it wouldn’t be so bad, my mother told me: There would be toys to play with! Well, THE TOYS SUCKED! No G.I. Joe with kung fu grip, no Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots, no Lite Brite, no Stretch Armstrong. Mostly just bland wooden representations of real world objects. Such a jip…
So listen up, Corporate America: YOUR TOYS SUCK IT - REAL BAD! (Not only do they suck, I predict you’ll all slip on them and get hurt within a few years: "You spent HOW MUCH on this? Please clear out your desk...")
