If you know me, you understand that I am the kind of guy who likes to sit back, collect the data, and watch for the patterns. There’s one pattern that’s emerged for me in the past few weeks, and it became shockingly apparent at Gartner’s recent Portals, Content & Collaboration Summit in Baltimore. Pattern is this: the world of IT has truly begun to embrace the broad range of technologies we call social technology. But the stage of adoption is pretty early. A key moment at Gartner PCC was an analyst presentation (Debra Logan’s session) that looked at the new roles for IT professionals in post-Enterprise 2.0. It felt like the kind of talk that consultants were giving at marketing and PR conferences five years ago. The message was, “get with it, gang. The world is changing, and so are your jobs.” I know — I was there, helping to deliver that message.

Why the delay? Not sure, but I think it may have a lot to do with the fact that Enterprise 2.0 — as a market — is just starting to heat up, and enterprise-wide social media … well, it just isn’t there at most organizations. And in order for the enterprise-wide thing to happen, IT will need to get involved. Recently, I attended a workshop at a management consulting company where a very smart social media practitioner blithely dismissed IT as an important stakeholder on social media projects. There was a time when many agreed that IT doesn’t matter (Nicholas Carr’s argument that IT is no longer a competitive differentiator, because every business has it), but lately the rap is that the IT professional doesn’t matter.

It’s an unfortunate view — it’s not only disrespectful, but way short-sighted. Yes, many great, emergent Enterprise 2.0 projects can be launched in the cloud, on a personal credit card, without the knowledge or consent of IT. But that’s just a snapshot of where we are today, and it would be a mistake for people to conclude that all things 2.0 and in the cloud leave IT on the sidelines. As another Gartner analyst at the Baltimore event noted, big organizations are now taking a look at larger projects, and IT is very much involved. Some stuff will stay in the cloud, other stuff inside the firewall, and perhaps even more stuff in some hybrid form. In any case, IT folks will be there, and they certainly do matter. But the Gartner event this month signals the kind of education — for both IT and the people who sell to them — that will need to happen before we see meaningful results.