Social layering can help bring IT and the business together :: Blog :: Headshift
http://www.headshift.com/blog/2010/07/social-layering-can-help-bring.php
But to really make the most of their features, it is often necessary to go beyond generic social tools and create much more business-relevant and locally-contextualised applications. For example, it is possible to use a wiki for co-ordinating new bids for a sales team, and if you give them one and a little guidance, they might make it work. But it is a lot more likely to succeed if you give them the Acme Bid Management System, which leverages the functionality of the wiki within an Acme-specific interface and workflow. If the wiki platform has an API, then you can do this and continue to iterate your application without having to mess with the wiki engine itself.
Great analysis. By the way, that's something that can easily be done with XWiki thanks to its API and application development capabilities.