We had a brilliant, lively evening with 40+ attendees discussing the implications of social media, both externally and internally within company firewall.. Terrific presentations from Andrew Abboud, CIO at City University who was open enough to share both the successes and the scars of his real world experience in this space; and Rob Gray, N Eur Marketing Manager at Google who allowed us to look under the bonnet to see how Google approach collaboration – v.interesting..

Key takeaways – if you’re starting on this journey find a problem to solve; go to where the energy already is; don’t expect everyone to get it straight away; find a sponsor who understands its a change management rather than technology management issue; culture matters; is governance possible or even appropriate in such a democratic and open environment; realise that if you’re not thinking about this as a CIO, there are already people inside your organisation using tools and soon, they may want your support!