I’ve seen and experienced many of the benefits of social media in the context of business. I’ve worked for clients who appreciated the improvements these tools and practices have delivered in communications, customer service and overall satisfaction in the workplace. The evidence for the effectiveness of social networking, blogging and realtime messaging is out there and irrefutable. Those companies that ignore or deny this only stand to fall behind those that are taking action to leverage the advantages of the social net.

And yet - as the outcome of this survey by Avenade indicate - more than half of the respondents “said senior executives and IT staff resist adoption out of fear it will sap worker productivity. Sixty percent believe management does not understand the potential social media offers employees and customers.” This in spite of the admission by more than half of the executive respondents that the use of social media is bound to infiltrate their companies through employees, without the leadership or involvement by them or their IT departments.

Perhaps many of these reticent executives would be more open to lower-commitment implementations of proven social media tools and practices that could demonstrate to them the potential value of wider scale adoption. Of course, some adjustments in corporate culture may be required, but if the alternative is being left in the dust by less fearful and more adaptive competitors, it makes little business sense to not be more curious and willing to experiment.