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In trying to define what is meant by the Social Enterprise, one word that is central is "open".  This was underlined recently in an excellent blog post by renown blogger, analyst and cloud commentator, Ben Kepes in his "Diversity Blog."  Ben spoke recently to John Wookey EVP of Social Applications at salesforce.com and driving the integration of Rypple - a social feedback and coaching application in the cloud.   Ben writes that John spoke of Rypple  in this way:

"...a demonstration of a fundamental change in the DNA of the enterprise – from closed and controlled being the defualt setting, to the norm and expectation being that the organization will be open and engaged."

This openness he speaks of is further emphasised by an interesting video shot at the offices of Facebook talking to workers there about how Rypple has changed the way they work. 

Phrases that keep coming up throughout the interview are "open" and "transparent" - not to mention, not surprisingly from Facebook, the word "social".  

All of this requires a change in the way we manage people.  It reminds us that technology is not the only change agent, and that change management is also key.  I spoke recently with Clive Roberts of local Australian partner Proquest (who speaks to Australian Reseller News here) about his use of Rypple).  Clive made the point very strongly to me that adopting the new technology required adopting a new approach to the way his company was managed that was more open and transparent.

A lot of what is meant by The Social Enterprise message is about Transformation - salesforce.com founder and CEO emphasises this strongly in his most recent keynote at Cloudforce San Francisco in March.  This means a lot more than just technological change, but about major and fundamental change.  

What successful strategies for change management have you seen?  Please share...