Consider two divergent takes on the business case for Web 2.0. Idea #1: Profitable innovations lie dormant because manufacturers don't use the right capture methods, including blogs and social networks. Idea #2: Blogs and social networks are just megaphones for attention-starved hacks.
Somewhere between idea #1 (the "wisdom of the crowd" model) and idea #2 (the "opinionated hordes" theory), manufacturing leaders must decide how they see their employees. Is the next great idea for a hot-selling product, for instance, frozen somewhere in the amber of your workforce?
Rob Cross, a business process consultant and associate professor at the University of Virginia, believes Web 2.0-based technology, applied responsibly, can produce impressive results. In his 2009 book, Driving Results through Social Networks, he cites the success of Mars Candy, which sowed the seeds of collaboration among its manufacturing and R&D workers to harvest its high-margin, customized M&Ms.
"They got the right sets of collaborations that enabled them to ... capitalize on a really cool innovation opportunity," Cross says.