How Companies Succeed in Social Business: Case Studies and Lessons from Adobe, Cisco, Unisys, and 18 More Brands

19. Enterprise Social Media: Science Versus Art

Christopher David Kaufman, Senior Consultant for Mobile and Social Business Strategy, Oracle

“There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, note more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new order of things.... Whenever his enemies have the ability to attack the innovator, they do so with the passion of partisans, while the others defined him sluggishly, so that the innovator and his party alike are vulnerable.”

—Niccolo Machiavelli, the Prince

The opening quote is also the first paragraph to the book Diffusion of Innovation by sociologist Everett Rodgers. It seems apt because it is the social media manager that the enterprise has placed at the center of innovation for ...