In this new, social, virtual, collaborative world, I’m often asked for “real” examples of the value of collaboration or how all this social media “stuff” is going to make a difference.  As with any “paradigm shift” or “bubble,” depending upon your level of cynicism, much media attention has been and is expended watching the social network, Enterprise 2.0, Web 2.0 spaces in search of those answers.  And, though I’m no expert, I’ve included a few decent stories below which show just how innovative we can be with this “stuff”:

• GE’s Enterprise Collaboration Backbone
• H&R Block Social Media Programs Success
• Kodak Clicks With Social Media Success
• Zappos: a Social Media Success Story
• Procter & Gamble cites progress, challenges with Cisco TelePresence
• Crowdsourcing sites: Innocentive, Dell, Yahoo!,

We now have the chance to not only watch one particularly important example be hashed out publicly, but to participate in it as well.  President-elect Obama’s transition team has setup a new site to communicate but also to crowdsource the answers to our most challenging problems as a country, society and global community.  Mashable nicely summarizes the site so far:

For the moment, the site is a bit of a prelude to the successful election, but the continuation of the user involvement we saw during the campaign is evident as well. The site is currently asking users to share their stories from election night, which, for at least around 53% of the American voting public, seemed to be a pretty memorable occasion judging from the TV coverage. There’s also a “Submit Your Vision” section, where Obama asks “Where should we start together?”

Additionally, it would appear that Obama will definitely be making use of the Web and social media to encourage public service. Change.gov features a top-level link to “America Serves,” which, currently is just a policy outline, but does point to the Web playing a pivotal role in this aspect of his administration.

This, most definitely, is not your papa’s government….