“Where do those notions come from ? They sound remarkably similar to Joe Blow’s, and I know they are not part of Watson Wyatt’s standard practices” (keeping in mind this was 2004).

To his credit, he owned up, and apologized for not having made the attributions (but he didn’t refund the $3K daily fee).

Look for Mercer, Towers Perrin, Hay, Aon and PA Consulting (in the UK) to do something similar within a year.

The tricky part for them is that they are heavily invested (tacitly) in helping managements sustain the means (and mirage) of control. Not that they won’t state otherwise, but it (deploying social software) will almost undoubtedly be the inside-the-firewall enterprise version of starting to blog but not really getting it, getting flustered or angered by comments, using ineffective moderation, etc. .. it may very well lead to more and more groupthink, and is very dependent upon the corporate culture that is in place and / or nourished. That said, I believe it can be a very useful set of tools and process for making real and at leat semi-organic change to ccorporate cultures that need changing.