In the February 1, 2012, Harvard Business Review, there was an analogy used to discuss the impact of social media on an organization which I thought was pretty useful.
Gerry Eberstadt, the CEO and founder of Turnto Networks, compared the difference between teaching a class and hosting a party.
In both everyone is in the same room. But in the first the focus is all on the teacher as a brand. As Eberstadt put it, the flow is hub and spoke. At the party, the participants may or may not even interact directly with the host. Chances are the guests are going to be as positive about the host as the students were about the teacher, maybe more so. The issue isn’t what is the right approach, but that each has its own value and implications.
A further comment was that the challenge regarding the party analogy is how to ‘monetize’ the event. It is necessary for have the guests ‘do something’ in relation to the host and often that is one of the challenges.