Jason and the Doctor are exchanging views on social networking tools in the spend management space. It’s an interesting discussion because few people have been exposed to the breadth of procurement technology that these the two bloggers have seen.
Jason’s position is that the killer app is yet to emerge but the Doctor is far more pessimistic stating
The verdict? Given the relative lack of useful content, the difficulty of identifying the sources and / or finding the content, and the over-abundance of purely social network features, for the time being, I’m definitely classifying these in the “Productivity Killer” category. When it comes to finding the relatively small amount of fresh, new, useful, and innovative content out there that is actually worth reading, I don’t see them being of any help in their current form, and actually see them as being more trouble than they’re worth. Connecting with people? Conferences, e-mail, and the good old fashioned telephone work just fine!
Despite the Doctor’s bah humbug manner of expressing this view, I’m currently inclined to agree with him. But I’ve enough respect for Jason’s feel for technology to be genuinely excited to see what he has coming in January. As Jason states in the post linked above:
But wait until January. Along with a friend who runs a procurement organization by day but is an entrepreneur by night, we might have something brand new up our sleeves, at least from a category sourcing perspective.
