Stepping Higher - Reflections on the Knowledge Age

In her Harvard Business Review article “ Why We Use Social Media in Our Personal Lives — But Not for Work ” from February 16, Tammy Erickson claims that the conditions under which we use social media in a personal and an organizational context are entirely different, and therefore should lead to massive challenges in getting adoption for Social Media solutions within enterprises. I must say, while Tammy makes some valid points (e.g. that internal platforms are usually less user-friendly than public tools), I find many of her arguments somehow missing the mark, which leads me to formulate a thorough critique of her article here. First of all, I cannot agree with Tammy’s sharp differentiation between use of social media in our work and our personal lives. This feels as odd as claiming in the early days of the telephone that the phone would be less useful for business than it is for personal use, or saying the same about email in 1990. What’s more, the lines between personal and profe...