To be efficient tools need contextualisation

That is not a secret: everyday billions of euros are spent worldwide to adapt tools to the specifics of the organisation they integrate. ERP are well known for being the cash cows of information systems consultancies. Information systems appliances you buy are standard. They are products. They become tools only once they match the organisational functioning. Depending the level of contextualisation they either contribute to improving processes or not. When insufficiently contextualised they create complexity* and rigidity, if not errors.

What is the benefit for social computing? Social computing tools do not follow the same way as traditional computing. The ‘one problem, one solution’ approach that has been characteristic to information systems does not apply. Social computing products can address many problems: a blogging platform can be relevant for communication, marketing, management and finance; a mix of blogs+wiki+social bookmarking+rss filters is relevant for knowledge sharing. Non contextualised social computing products are useless as many unofficially reported cases show. There is not point of having a blogging platform for the sake of it (exactly like a standard ERP). This is problematic because the value does not appear and people finally disregard the product. Non contextualisation is a factor of non-adoption of social computing.

* Probably 80% of us has never used more than 20% of the Microsoft Office functionalities and find it hard to navigate among overloaded toolbars.