"Groundswell" - Web 2.0 as a route to business transformation

HR Circles reports that by using technologies like blogs and wikis, YouTube and Facebook, discussion forums and online reviews, customers are taking charge of their own experience and getting what they need such as information, support, ideas, products, and bargaining power — from each other. This phenomenon, coined 'the groundswell' by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, two of Forrester Research’s American top analysts, is creating a permanent shift in the way the world works.

I have expressed frustration about how many organisations (including my own) seem obsessed with protection of information and intellectual property rights which often results in the banning of Web 2.0 technologies. This in the face of a “non-corporate” world where people are changing how they communicate faster than ever before by adopting Web 2.0 technologies. Li and Bernoff present a strong case for organisations to look on Web 2.0 as an opportunity rather than a threat. They do this by presenting what they refer to as their Social Technographics Ladders in which they classify customers depending on their Web 2.0 activities. They go on to describe how, based on this new classification, business can better listen, talk to, and energise customers.

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I’d like to hear of any examples of “groundswell” being used successfully, especially in the HR context?

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