IT Equals IC: Networks in the Organization

In my past couple posts, I have been talking about mapping networks as the new organization chart.

The concept of networks in the organization is not new. Human beings have always found ways to connect with each other through tribes, associations, work groups and many other types of networks. What is new is the speed and ease with which networks can be formed thanks to information technology (IT). It can be hard to separate the history of the technologies that have enabled the growth and capture of knowledge from the knowledge itself. Nowhere is this relationship more clear than with networks. IT helps us create powerful connections between people and organizations. And these connections, these relationships take on a life of their own.

So we have to understand networks as both a technology and a relationship. Your people are connected more often through IT than they are face to face. Even more so with your customers and other external stakeholders—the relationship is often conducted via electronic networks. The communication technology may include email, instant messaging, social media, collaborative software platforms and/or integrated, automated processes. In this world, where knowledge is exchanged and built inside computer systems and networks, it is getting increasingly impossible to separate IT and IC.

Realization of this has been growing. We knew that there had been a sea change when we received a call in 2009 from a reader of my blog, a manager of a Microsoft SharePoint installation asking for help. SharePoint is a platform for knowledge exchange and management. His organization had asked him how he could help them “use IT to optimize our intangible capital.” Their words, not ours. In some ways, this is the essence of the opportunity created by networking technologies and the goal of this book.

Enormous advances have already occurred in the automation of knowledge work inside organizations. The computers inside the organization have long been connected with each other in electronic networks that help workers share information and collaborate in their work. This is often referred to as networking inside the firewall, the hardware and software systems that protect the network from external intrusions.

Plenty of companies have also extended their networks to close partners. This did—and often still does—require a physical or dedicated connection. Suppliers to Wal-Mart, for example, have been connected into its supply chain systems for close to two decades, a system that moved to Internet delivery in 1992.  In fact, while there are still opportunities for automating inside the firewall, much of the innovation in information technology will be in automating backwards into the supply chain and forward to provide better service and connection with customers. This will be more possible due to the Internet.

Adapted from Intangible Capital: Putting Knowledge to Work in the 21st Century Organization by Mary Adams and Michael Oleksak.