While this commentary (below) is directed at the externally-oriented marketing uses of social media, it's not too hard to imagine a similar (calm) rant about the use of interconnectivity for people to exchange information and 'talk' about issues that are important to their work (what we call "social learning").
Anyone disagree that the incessant calls for hard ROI of social computing are as much about decision-makers' fear of the unknown ad reticence to change as it may be about any worries they have about actual ROI.
After all, much of the experimentation that is possible now can take place in a safe-fail context, and won't cost very much. As an organization learns more and more about what works and what doesn't, it can then proceed on to the next safe-fail social learning (and productivity-or-innovation enhancement) project.
