One of the big promises of social technologies is the possibility of boundary-less communication within an organization and across its entire eco-system. Enabling this free flow of knowledge and sharing of ideas can unleash unprecedented levels of collaboration and innovation.

Yet, to ensure that these viral exchanges create value and are beneficial to the larger system, organizations need mechanisms that are preventing damages, may they be intentional or not.
 
Balancing the conflicting objectives of freedom and control is a tough nut to crack.  It is a challenging task that touches structures, mechanisms, processes and culture – the entire hard and soft architecture of an organization.

Letting go and trusting the dynamics of horizontal self-editing networks is as important as creating vertical accountability and decision rules. It is the dialectic interplay of the formal and the informal that leaders need to understand and leverage for continuous strategic and organizational development and change.
 
Social Media policies, integrity frameworks or leadership values are common examples of architectural designs aiming at framing the deployment of social technologies. Usually these are implemented at an enterprise level via compliance rules crafted by the legal department.

While some of these efforts are useful, they tend to address only a fraction of the challenge as they typically focus on domains a company can control and enforce. Addressing practices, processes and metrics that go beyond the walls of the organization is equally essential as stakeholders that constitute the value of a network are frequently outside the boundary of a compeny. Think about open innovation, customer engagement, supply chain efficiency, talent attraction, and so on.

And policies, frameworks and values are not enough.  OSML requires also the design and implementation of new roles that are required to leverage the potential of social technology. Content curators, community builders, social entrepreneurs, network analysts, etc. are roles that historically cannot be found on organizational charts and that require new capabilities and new ways of organizing the workplace.
 
If you are a senior leader, we would like to hear how you design your organization to take advantage of the opportunities that come with social technologies, and what you think about the importance of this skill. Topics that come to mind are:

• What structures, mechanisms or processes do you have in place that foster horizontal collaboration? How do you keep accountability?
   
• Do you have stories/examples about the tension between the vertical leadership approach (command/control, linear process, metrics and objectives) and the horizontal one (influence without power, networks, communities, self-directed teams)? Is it a positive tension? How do you deal with it?
   
• Tell us about the cornerstones of the Social Media policy for your organization. Where does it work? Where are challenges? Where is it dysfunctional?
   
• How do you utilize/deploy Social Media strategies for key business functions such as innovation, supply chain management, talent management, project management, strategy, etc.?

 
From a conceptual point of view, we are interested in discussing questions such as:

• Which organizational design principles do we need to strike a balance between enabling free communication across the organization while minimizing the risks inherent to such unbridled exchanges?
   
• Balancing vertical accountability with horizontal collaboration might be the ultimate challenge organizations are facing to fully capitalize on the power of social media. What can organization and networks research contribute in this context?
   
• Do structures with a tradition in horizontal collaboration (i.e. global consultancies, academia with its faculty peer-networks) have an advantage when it comes to leveraging OSML? Can more vertically structured organizations learn from them?
   
• What are new roles that will gain in importance in an organization with high level of social media literacy? Will other roles disappear?
   
• How can/will Social technology reshape the traditional operating model of core functions, such as Strategy, Communication, HR, Supply Chain Management, R&D, IT, Legal, or Finance?

 
These are only examples, designed to inspire contributions. Let’s start the conversation!