Hiya,

I think we need to be cognisant that the organisations post social media will not be our current organisations rearranged. As I say elsewhere in the post you kindly linked to, "The dirty secret of E2.0 is that it’s being used the same way as most technologies to date: it’s being used to remove people from the equation." The organisations that emerge from the social media meat grinder in the next couple of years will be new organisations, leaner, stripped to the bone, which are closer to the British Civil Service in India, or the Royal Navy around the turn of the 18th century (including their extensive use of free agents) than Ford or GE. Centralised control will exist for a while yet, but it will focus on establishing policies which help teams work together, rather than micromanaging tasks.

As you point out, the MBA mind-set in the mid- to upper-ranks of many large organisations will be the big losers in this. I don't think they'll be a barrier though, as upper management will use social media to connect directly with the teams at the front line and simply remove them from the equation. We might also expect the supporting functions involved with maintaining large employe populations and technology estates (i.e. HR and IT) to be decimated as the need for them ebbs away.

r.

PEG