A networked Europe – c’est possible? I read today that Axel Schultze is in charge of developing a social media strategy for Europe – yes, Europe!

Just – think about it: think about the barriers you might be able to identify in any one of your current collaboration-orientated projects and then multiply them, say, a few billion times. 

As it happens, I’m working on a collaborative behaviour workshop for the Knowledge & Innovation Network. Here are the top four enablers and barriers I’ve come across (not specifically with regard to Europe, but I guess we can apply them):

Top four enablers:

  1. Social Leadership – people that behave in a supportive, enabling manner
  2. Networked culture – a culture that values connections and knowledge exchange across all parts of the organisation, and beyond!
  3. Reward systems for collaborative behaviour – VIP treatment, peer acknowledgement etc
  4. Social proof – real world examples of where collaborative behaviour has paid dividends in some way (from Facebook followers & Twitter fans to awards and press mentions)

Top four barriers:

  1. Anti-social leadership (empowering favourites etc)
  2. Legacy systems (tech and human)
  3. Reward systems that reinforce the above
  4. Paying lip service to change without actually changing one iota – something European businesses are very good at (especially banks).

Maybe there is scope here for some kind of international competition for social media consultants to come up with a solution (heh, I’m not joking)! Certainly this is a fabulous top level challenge to community managers everywhere – fancy stepping up to the plate? You can join the discussion on the Digital Agenda Assembly website.

Photo: Samuel330

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