No Secrets in Web 2.0

In evaluating the benefits of Web 2.0 for business, I've always been inclined to believe it had more than potentiality within the enterprise, primarily because:

a) there is just going to be a higher criterion of answerability for the quality of content users are building/sharing, and

b) tons of professional folks are hesitating about farewell the head covering on their most valuable professional secrets to people outside their ain company.

I was reminded of the latter trepidation a few hebdomads back when I attended a gross sales meeting treatment on how to mine LinkedIn for possible contacts while being careful not to endanger your ain most valuable contacts via the societal networking platform.

I was hit in the human face with it this morning time as I debated with myself on whether I should post a LinkedIn inquiry about possible sellers for a engineering we are considering here at IT Business Edge.

Mind you, the determination we are mulling over have nil to make with any proprietary, patentable thing we are dreaming up. We are just trying to additional polish a listing of best-of-breed sellers to evaluate.

But still, I was hesitating to print my inquiry out there where the whole human race will see it. Obviously, there's a mish-mash of megalomania and paranoia going on here, I thought, so I checked with a chap VP (he was likewise paranoid) and my boss, who saw no job with this small spot of unsubstantial disclosure.

So, I posted the inquiry on LinkedIn. No replies at the clip of this posting, but I make cognize person is reading. Our gross sales rep with another seller we have got demoed gave me a phone call to state that his selling squad had seen my question, and he just wanted to touch alkali with me to see if there was any more than information he could provide.

Makes it look sort of cockamamie to seek to maintain secrets in the human race of Web 2.0.