Contributed by regular guest blogger Gareth Murran from ThirdForce’s Innovation team.

In the 1990s, it was common to hear that “the Internet changes everything.” This was to act as a warning to companies who were slow in putting up websites and making e-commerce available to their customers.

Ten years later the Internet has expanded exponentially, it now is the Marketing Department. Most companies of size have websites, e-commerce, and dabble in e-shot marketing. But despite all these moves, businesses are in danger of losing control of the Internet-fuelled conversation about their products and services, putting their reputations at risk. Enter the groundswell as an unstoppable force, one that today’s companies must understand and embrace.

I’ve just finished reading “Groundswell” a leading book on winning in a world transformed by social technologies, by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff from Harvard Business Press. Whether you are still scratching your head about what’s going on, or you’re a veteran new media marketing strategist, you need to get out your magic marker and your sticky notes, and go sit in a quiet corner and read this book. It’s not only the most lucid explanation of how social media has changed the world; it’s a massively fun read. Dell for example is covered extensively as a company that went from Dell Hell and flaming notebooks to being the poster child for embracing social technologies with their customers

Being an engineer rather than a marketer I was most interested in Chapter 11 “The Groundswell inside your company”. The authors provide  an easy to understand strategy for participating in the Groundswell. The Internal Groundswell is about taking an holistic approach, ranging from a CEO blog (internally focused) to the use of wikis and social networks to connect far-flung employees. An example from the book that shows both the upside and downside of having such media in the office is Best Buy‘s internal community site Blue Shirt Nation. Blue Shirt Nation allows Best Buy’s so-called Blue Shirt sales staff to swap ideas and problem-solve together. When the company tried to trim its employee discount, the Blue Shirts mounted a Blue Shirt Nation revolt that forced Best Buy to cancel its plans.

Every company has its own unique communication problems, but in general terms, the bigger a company the more of a problem internal communication becomes. Information flows down the management ladder, but getting information back to management and knowing how to encourage collaboration and communication is an order of magnitude more difficult. To figure out what works for a specific company  the companies need to be ready to fail often, fail early and most important, fail cheaply.

Archetypal roles like evangelists, inactive users and rebels all play their parts in tapping the Groundswell of ideas amongst the people who best know how your business is run, your employees.  The authors also point out that staff business processes revolve around knowing each other and, more importantly, around the work that each person does. Culture, relationships and simple ground rules set the stage for the success or failure of internal initiatives, but also, “it sure helps if the social technologies have an manager or two behind them.” It’s important that participation be made easy and desirable, not strong-armed.

The explosion of blogs, wikis, podcasts, online videos, social networking sites, and cyber chat rooms has altered the traditional relationship between companies and their employees. Employers  must face the challenges of adapting to informal grass-roots movement of people deploying online tools to learn, connect and swap information, tips, and rumours.