Recently in a phone interview I was asked about the difference between the two subjects in the title. I thought to myself, I have answered this many times, but it would be just so much easier to write my answer and then have it available to anyone who reads my blog or is searching for the answer. Not to mention, putting frequently asked questions in a blog post or a wiki page is usually one of my solutions I offer to someone if they keep having to answer the same question or relay the same information more than twice. So I thought I should heed my own advice.

Simply put its internal vs. external, two different parts, that work separately, but should work together. See my breakdown below for more differences:

OK I put some things in there for levity as I am biased for the Enterprise 2.0 side of the house. The reason, I think organizations should think internally before claiming they get it on the Internet. You may look cool by having a social media presence to get new recruits and new hires. But if you do not have a productive and collaborative environment behind the firewall, you are NOT going to retain the young bright minds to take your organization into the future.

Also, I didn’t know about the existence of this video, of someone I practically consider a mentor in the business and thinking end of all things Enterprise 2.o. I think Andy eloquently speaks on the differences in what he has noticed in the the past 2 and a half years.

Andrew McAfee – What is Web/Enterprise 2.0

My simple advice is this if you are a business organization, your Enterprise solution should be in communication with your social media strategy. If you are public organization, who has or hires a marketing team, you should be in control of your brand presence on the internet. You should NOT outsource this. For Government organizations, this position for brand management should be part of your Office of Public Affairs or equivalent. The persons working on this external presence for your organization, should also be a part of the enterprise solution for internal collaboration. The internal collaboration, the Enterprise 2.0 platform your organization leverages to communicate between employees is paramount to the growth of the organization.

Tweet This Post Delicious Digg This Post Facebook Reddit

This blog post response originally started off as a comment to Maxine Teller in her response to another blog [ The US Government Catches The Twitter Bug, And Amazingly, Does It Well ] from yesterday. I felt it only right to take my rant onto my blog as the comment was way too long and linky.

I wanted to really highlight one example of Government interaction on twitter that has been called out, but really point out in my opinion, why I think they are an exemplar case of interacting with their customers.

@TSAblogteam really is one of the better examples I have seen of Government caring, listening and responding. I relate this account and their related blog [ http://www.tsa.gov/blog ] as on par with @comcastcares on twitter. I also like the fact that whomever is the tweeter, they sign their name. I like the transparency in ownership.

The TSA blog team actively listen for complaints, compliments and feedback from travelers and direct policy change has resulted. I bring the case in point when it came to Macbook Air. When they first were on the market, TSA security checkpoints didn’t understand the new laptop when screening persons through the line. Someone blogged about their experience and TSA responded and the laptops were subsequently allowed through security checkpoints.

I was actually talking to a colleague the other day about how Government could engage via twitter to speak with those who mention their agency or organization. Trouble is, its a full time job, for more than one person just to keep up with the number of instances and mentions (just look at the Summize search for CIA, NSA, FBI, …. and so on), especially for the aforementioned beltway bandits. All Government organizations do have offices of public affairs, in which new media, to include twitter, should be in their plans if not now, but real soon to have some official presence, in my opinion. Would you, a citizen and taxpayer want a representative or team engaged on twitter, responding to your tweets? I’m curious to know.

Many times its the negative stories you hear in the press that get trickled down and reposted in blogs and tweets all over, but I would personally like to see more of the “successes” being disseminated in new media. A great example of that is the DoD New Media office (Google search DoD New Media and see the results and you’ll know what I mean) in which Maxine is a part of and @uknowjack. This office is really working with the abundance of information coming from various parts of the DoD and putting it together for you [See DoDLive as one example], the American Citizen to read in findable places on the web to get the real stories of War and being in the field, along with our military successes.

Tweet This Post Delicious Digg This Post Facebook Reddit