Scott Anthony, a colleague of industry guru Clayton Christensen and managing director of Innosight in Watertown, Mass., says social networking, which encourages companies and individuals to collaborate via technology, is helping to drive openness.

"Social networking enables companies and individuals to do things they couldn't do in the past. No individual or group has a license on good ideas," Anthony says.

One example is a concept called "crowdsourcing," in which there's open innovation and collaboration among many parties, he adds.

Anthony says there has to be a shift from a culture of "invented here" to "found elsewhere."

"People need to see that borrowing from the outside or grabbing from somewhere else is a good thing.

"The notion that you want to solve problems on your own -- that's not the way innovation works. Companies have to change their cultures to move forward," he says.

Editor's Note: Is your IT organizational structure holding your company back?

We're assembling a package of stories to be published in Network World looking at the IT organizational structure of the future and we need your help:

* If your company has recently reorganized in light of new business and technology challenges and opportunities, can you send along "before" and "after" org charts? (Feel free to strip out the names, we're really just looking for titles. But give us a sense of the size of your IT organization/business.) Can you tell us how the reorganization has worked out?

* If your company is in need of an IT org makeover, what areas are currently most dysfunctional?

* Any advice on what your peers can do to improve their IT organizations right now?

We're looking to tap into our readership through a technique some call "crowdsourcing." Knowing we don't have all the answers, but that our audience probably has a lot of them, we're hoping to help you help each other.

Please send info to News Editor Bob Brown at bbrown@nww.com

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