The field of social computing is evolving rapidly, with new ideas, new tools and new ways of working emerging all the time. We track these developments and are well placed to identify those innovations that are ready to cross over into mainstream usage within businesses and large organisations; but we can also tell the difference between shiny things and useful things.

Social computing offers huge potential for cost savings compared to traditional IT, but the real benefits are in the networked productivity and added value that it can bring to communications, knowledge sharing, people development and customer engagement.

The mixture of skills required to implement social computing effectively for business is quite specialised, and most companies do not possess as much depth and experience in this area as Headshift. There is huge potential to reduce costs inside a business by adopting social tools for communication, knowledge sharing, publishing and client service, for example. However, this requires not only cheap software, but the ability to put together the right blend of tools, process, working practices and governance.

Pure-bred consultancies can offer ideas and analysis, but not deliver solutions. Software vendors want to sell their product, and of course they believe it can do everything you need. Ours is a blended approach that provides a bedrock of analysis based on identifying real-world use cases and scenarios where we think social tools can add value, but also helps integrate the right combination of best-of-breed tools, custom code and existing systems. But we don't stop there. We can also help engage users, stimulate social networks that develop around the tools and provide ongoing training and support.

Above all, we aim to develop long-term partnerships to help organisations evolve more effective in-house social computing capabilities both within the business and its supporting IT/IS functions.