One of the ways I have been playing with is creating models of the systems to help facilitate a discussion of how to manage it–including cost to build, cost to maintain, capacity and, yes, return.

I have some slides here http://www.slideshare.net/maryadamsica/knowledge-is-the-new-oil that model Google’s search business as an example. I would love to hear what you think.

I have a couple of quick comments to add. For several years now we’ve been using wikis internally at Element K, and one of the striking things I hear from people and see myself is the increased amount of “informal learning enablement” that is provided. What is enabled is the capturing of conversations and other informal learning that was going on already, because now people have a simple place to document: “Hey, good thoughts Joe — when you get back to your desk, please document that in the wiki.” Then overtime the networking effects you describe multiply these benefits as more people have access to that content, actually interact with it and improve it, and this leads to a virtuous cycle. And all of this process is visible to management — indeed to everyone — instead of the (less frequent) informal learning and knowledge sharing being completely unseen prior.

Another tidbit to toss in is that while I think blogs, wikis, and forums can provide a lot of value when used well in organizations, the technologies that are easiest to understand in the light of your new ROII concept are internal social networking and internal micro-messaging. These involve quantifying relationships — whether two-way “friend” or “connection” relationships, or one-way “follower” relationships. I think the latter in particular, the model used by Twitter, will be very powerful for organizations, as I’m reading more positive results from the use of Yammer and the like practically every day.

The only caveat with all of this of course is to avoid “spinning one’s wheels”, for instance by engendering more conversations and idea sharing as an end in itself, rather than as a means to greater productivity, greater innovation, etc. Not everyone needs to be connected to everyone else in an organization, nor talking with everyone else about everything. At some point, some invididuals will be wasting time, could be flooded with too many tangential facts or conversations, and so on. So those tasked with ROII analysis need to be careful to avoid perverse incentives to increase the numbers (e.g., the number of network connections and conversations occuring) for their own sake, and make sure that the growth is in fact productive and meaningful. In most cases, this will occur naturally and won’t be an issue (and taking this concern to far would obviously kill the goose that lays the golden egg, such as “locking down pages in a wiki” can). But it is worth mentioning because anytime you introduce something new — in this case, paying more attention to your people network and rewarding its growth — negative unintended consequences and side effects can result to get you side-tracked. Positive unintended consequences, of course, are much desired!