Efficient Project Staffing with Social Networks

A quite good piece in the HBR Blog on some of the issues behind using social technologies for staffing and collaboration.  In particular I like the statement of the problems themselves:, which we immediately discovered a decade ago in different guises:  " ...  Asking a colleague, "Do you have bandwidth to work on this project?", has long been a mysterious and even perilous activity in knowledge-based organizations. ...   Project timetables, deliverables, and scope can unexpectedly change. Some colleagues just can't say no, even when they are already oversubscribed. Others automatically say no because they're holding out for more interesting opportunities, or ones that advance their careers. In sum: assessing a colleague's bandwidth has traditionally required negotiation, guesswork, and other "knowledge interaction" costs that hurt performance, even if they aren't directly measured in financial systems ... " 

 Discusses research with Booz Allen's successful collaboration Hello network.  " ... an "internal Facebook." It is a widely used tool, which nearly all of the firm's 24,000 employees have logged into, with 50% contributing content. Before Hello, consultants often relied on their own personal network, or their manager's network, to get staffed on future projects.... "