Supporting HEROes with Technology Innovation: How IT Professionals and Employees Can Work Together to Create Customer-Focused Technology Solutions

By: Josh Bernoff and Ted Schadler

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Synopsis: Social technologies like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr have tremendous power to serve your customers, and these technologies are literally at your employees' fingertips. This chapter explains how IT professionals and employee HEROes-Highly Empowered and Resourceful Operatives-must share the responsibility of technological leadership if your company is to become capable of employee-driven, customer-focused innovation. IT's new role is not to run all your HERO-driven technology projects. Instead, your IT department must learn to support HERO initiatives by finding and assembling the best technologies, exposing HEROes to them, and managing collaboration activities. Using rich examples from Aflac and Best Buy, authors Josh Bernoff-coauthor of "Groundswell"-and Ted Schadler show you a whole new way to look at technology in the corporate world-a world in which your IT department no longer operates isolated systems, but instead supports ubiquitous business and social technologies. This chapter was originally published as Chapter 13 of Empowered: Unleash Your Employees, Energize Your Customers, and Transform Your Business