How Yammer is like cave painting - a brief study in ROI

In Lascaux, France exists one of the oldest forms of communication, cave paintings.  These paintings were a method of communication between groups of Paleolithic hunters to deliver vital information about animal and human life during that time. 

Per Wikipedia, Social media can be said to have three components;

1. Concept (art, information, or meme).
2. Media (physical, electronic, or verbal).
3. Social interface (intimate direct, community engagement, social viral, electronic broadcast or syndication, or other physical media such as print).

Painted on the walls of caves, these paintings  represent what could be considered the first instance of social media.  Hunters used the walls of caves (social interface) to paint images (media) of hunting scenes (user generated content) to communicate information such as types of animals, time of year, and techniques (concepts).

That being said, I'm fairly sure that the Paleolithic cave men didn't stop to ponder the ROI of what they were doing. Cave paintings equaled communication between hunters which equaled increased productivity on the hunting grounds.  I'm sure the equivalent of bean counters in the cave men world didn't care about the puka shell cost of the paint or the time spent painting, they just ate the results of the kill.

 Yummy

So why are advocates of the use of social media in enterprise continually asked about calculating the ROI for the modern version of cave paintings - Twitter/Yammer?   I have been struggling to find a good way to explain why calculating ROI for Social Media is impossible.  It's like asking me to calculate the ROI for use of email or a phone in the workplace.

If you search the interwebs, you will find pretty much the same opinion.  Some Quotes:

The problem with trying to determine ROI for social media is you are trying to put numeric quantities around human interactions and conversations, which are not quantifiable.

Considering social media use for business started in the marketing departments, my leadership has the misguided notion that I can definitively calculate the ROI of an internal social media program.  While I'm getting fairly good a deflecting the request at this time, I was having trouble coming up with a way of explaining the silliness of their request. 

I think that rather than explaining how the evolution of communication is important, maybe if we devolve and take away email and phones,  that would have more impact in communicating the value of forging ahead with Yammer.  :)

Yes, I'm evil.

But, the cavemen had it right.  Simple messages, delivered in a simple way,  freely contributed to by all, with a degree of permanence  in order to educate to new members of the community in future. The emerging workforce are the new  Paleolithic hunters, clamoring to paint on the wall and connect with their community.  Just like the cavemen, this new workforce knows it's integral to their and their employer's success....

....and they don't care about the ROI either.