We recently used this short video in our workshop we ran on "The Essence of Online Groups" to describe just this:

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g 400x400]

So we have decided as an organisation that we have to address the concept of Collaborative Business Networking. Be it Facebook, Linkedin or Instant messaging not to mention the other Web2.0 tools out there. We have been convinced that this new business principal will save us money and improve our bottom line.

Who in the company will take ownership ? Where does this responsibility lie?

Its always been a bugbear of mine that the IT industry creates a dependency on upgrades and purchasing new solutions simply to keep the industry turning over.  The concept of Open Source and SaaS in my view helped alleviate the need to upgrade or implement simply to keep up with the churn created by the industry. I have noticed however that certain technologies which say they have an open platform, change it at a pace which means the value add application solutions that integrate with theirs have to be reworked and retested and this costs the smaller operations time and money.

The bottom line is that Standards are still key and changing an (Application programming Interface) API can be a frightening experience for anyone who depends on it for their own application development.