The art of social software inside the firewall: First, avoid the IT department

Trevor Cook, reacting to a post by Shel Holtz, weighs up the both sides of the argument about how IT departments can block the take up of social software within the firewall:

"IT departments... have to let go because we're entering the era of the user as controller. If IT departments don't let go - the HUGE productivity gains to be had from things like RSS feeds and aggregators will be lost.

OTH, I continue to be amazed by the absolute IT illiteracy of most people, even people who use computers all day seem completely incurious about how they operate...

Perhaps, if I worked in an IT dept and had to deal with this level of ignorance all day I too would be a paranoid, control freak."

So is it just ignorance or good IT managament practice? This is something I've discussed in the past. IMHO rather than rolling up the shutters, IT departments must engage with this new technology.

Tags: enterprise social software, intranet imperative, technology in the workplace