11 Things Startups Should Know About Enterprise 2.0 - ReadWriteWeb

A very nice quote that is key to what I'm working on at work these days! Emphasis mine

11 Things Startups Should Know About Enterprise 2.0 - ReadWriteWeb: "Social Media is about being open, loose, unstructured, informal and fun; no ties allowed. Enterprises are about secrecy, structure and control. Ties show that you are serious and fun is for after work. The ties and fun bit is just style. But secrecy, structure and control is real. If you threaten those, many forces within the enterprise will shut you out. It will be like the red blood cells attacking the foreign virus. On the other hand, if you go along with all the secrecy, structure and control rules of the enterprise you will lose the social media benefits of extended enterprise collaboration and innovation. Many people within enterprises understand this and some of them are in a policy-making position of authority. In general, the trend is towards loose, unstructured, 'emergent business networks'. So 'make the trend your friend', but beware of the very strong forces of opposition and deal positively with their legitimate needs."