Dion -
An extremely interesting article. As a vendor of social software, we're often exposed to an intriguing mix of the trends that you've outlined above. In particular, we've noticed that those common internal advocates you mentioned (e.g. corporate communications, knowledge management) are already sold on the benefits of social solutions, but often look to us during the sales cycle to provide ROI/metrics that link back to core business objectives.
Without them, they often face an uphill battle to socialize the solution internally. Looking at metrics such as improved sales, decreased customer service costs through peer-to-peer collaboration, and improved customer experience, has been helpful, as they're some of the "specific collaborative activities" that also have a commonly-accepted pre-established cost associated with them. At OutStart, we're constantly searching for more effective approaches to ROI measurement for social solutions, and I'd love to hear more about some of the metrics you were exposed to at the Frankfurt Summit.
Jeff Whitney, OutStart
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