Who owns the social network?

Chief Learning Officer magazine ask which function (HR, IT, corporate communications, knowledge management or learning and development) should own an organisation's approach to social networking.

Their answer:

"HR is more likely to own any internally facing social network, but that arrangement isn’t common enough to be considered typical.

When you look internally at an employee-oriented community, you’ve got a number of benefits or goals that you’re looking to achieve with social networks.

They help create a corporate culture of sharing and teamwork. They help increase intracompany communication and collaboration. They facilitate the identification of subject-matter experts. They can improve employee retention because technology is creating new bonds among employees and between employee and company, and that adds a human element to the company.”

Given my past couple of posts about HR's role in steering web 2.0 and social networking, there's a lot of ground to make up before they can take on this role.