A number of Irish organisations are already using social networking technologies to one extent or another to breath some internal life into their organisations. The technologies can be very democratising in allowing or enhancing debate, both public and private.

Some examples locally that I’ve come across are:

http://www.isfeidirlinn.org/
http://www.labour.ie/forum/
http://my.greenparty.ie/
http://www.feasta.org/

He makes some good points in his piece about the suitability or otherwise of certain technologies / services in terms of ownership, control, privacy. Any serious group looking to use social networking to discuss internal organisational matters, strategies, policies etc. would have to think hard about the trade offs involved. It could be very damaging for a political party or community group if the security of their network was compromised and information was made visible to third parties who might want to use sensitive material to publicly undermine the organisation, for example.

As with everything in life, there is no free lunch. Doing this properly requires an investment in technical capability, which can be a distraction of resource away from the primary functions of the organisation, while doing it the easy way leaves open those issues of control. Swings and roundabouts. But ultimately democratising yes, and therefore a good thing, whatever about the challenges.