by Bill Ives
January 15, 2007 at 11:25 am
· Filed under Enterprise 2.0
Here is a post from Gautum Ghash on how the consulting firm, Watson Wyatt is starting a social media practice. He refers to an article by Michael Rudnick, national intranet and portal leader, Watson Wyatt. Published in Strategic HR Review, Volume 6, Issue 2. Rudnick provides some success factors for employers to succeed in social media that all seem reasonable but not novel. Basically he says that you need to embrace the new wave that he labels social media. It is what others call web 2.0 and/or enterprise 2.0 as Michael discusses user generated content as the core. He writes that you should not try to control it but rather make collaboration easy. There is more.
The article reports that “Watson Wyatt’s research found that during the last three years there’s been a 400% increase in social media behavior.” This does seem plausible but I wonder how they measure it? The article also reports, “According to research by Watson Wyatt, nearly 50% of the employee population will soon prefer – and expect – collaborative and interactive methods of communication with their employers.” In other words they will likely want Enterprise 2.0.
The article is for paid subscribers but Gautum provides a summery at, Watson Wyatt evangelises blogging and social media.. He wonders how long before the other large consulting firms get into the act. Perhaps some have already but the post by Jim McGee on this blog, Can Enterprise 2.0 evolve from Enterprise1.0?, indicates that some are still looking to provide more traditional and more expensive solutions.
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BrianJanuary 15th, 2007 at 6:16 pm |
Speaking of large consulting firms embracing Enterprise 2.0, it seems that Jeremy works for BearingPoint (used to be called KPMG consulting) and blogs about Enterprise 2.0 at http://www.socialglass.com
Thanks for pointing out this interesting blog. There are likely a number of individuals at big consulting firms blogging on enterprise 2.0. At least one of the Fast Forward bloggers works for a large consulting comapny. There are likely even more alums such as myself. I wonder how many of the big firms are starting a client facing practice in this space.
In 2003 and 2004, when social software was arguably a smaller phenomenon, I used to run around forecasting why, when and how “it” (blogs, wikis, collaboration portals, etc.) would find a toehold in enerprises and then spread (or not). The Watson Wyatt org effectiveness practice leader in this country, whom I knew from mutual jobs in a previous organizational consulting firm, used to run around using concepts and diagnostics with his clients that I had developed, until a client I had known for years who was the head of learning and OD in one of the largest companies here challenged him and said:
“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.
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HowardSeptember 15th, 2007 at 5:02 pm |
Check into the P&G move towards outsourcing and collaborating with outside researchers, inventors and the like. The movement towards collaboration outside the firewall is accelerating fast. A friend of bschool friend of mine at Caswell Smith http://www.caswellsmith.com (strategy consulting) works with a few start-up firms that are making tools to support this movement.
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