PCWorld has an article about Jeff Mann's take on the business value of social software. Mann, a Gartner analyst, is not just a proponent of social software. He's elevating the category above others.
Shrinking returns from business automation and the impact of Web 2.0 are conspiring to revolutionize the workplace and change the way we do business forever, according to Jeff Mann, research vice-president at Gartner.
Mann said that social interaction is the way most value is delivered in the modern work environment and predicted that by 2012, the primary role of business networks will be to support social interactions, not routine business transactions.
It's refreshing to see social software getting this kind of side-by-side comparison with other business technology. But my guess is that social software will be embedded in the fabric of everything we do, rather than dueling for a better position in the "software stack." It's about the socialization of the enterprise, which will always rely on the automation of processes but also always depend on the autonomy of its people.
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