Comments on: Enterprise 2.0’s Productivity Perception Paradox

By: Joe McKendrick

Joe McKendrick — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 16:44:49 +0000

Great observations. In the earlier part of my career, I was director and editor of an international management association, and was therefore exposed to some of the great thinkers on productivity and motivation. Nothing motivates employees more than 1) feelings of appreciation, and 2) feelings of “ownership” (doesn’t have to be financial). And, as Gilf astutely points out, if the corporate culture is less than inspirational, then E2.0 does devolve into just another PYA mechanism. Just as email has become a PYA mechanism in many companies these days — corporate email boxes and servers are clogged with messages upon messages with everyone cc’ed. The organization itself has to be one that promotes productivity, entrepreneurial spirit, teamwork, and freedom to fail without repercussions. That’s still a rare quality these days, and technology often only automates the problem, not solves it. But, if these inspired companies out there that are achieving results with E2.0 and SOA start eating the lunch of their hidebound competitors, that’s how the message begins to sink in. It doesn’t come from altruism or feel-good management, it comes from competition.

By: gilf

gilf — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 18:20:46 +0000

On the other hand, E2.0 might be yet another way to look busy. Put you name on enough company blogs, wikis and RSS feeds and you get the perception of productivity.

Productivity is first and foremost about people. If managers cannot distinguish between a productive and a non-productive employee in the flesh and on paper, no technology will help them.

By: Mehnaz

Mehnaz — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 11:48:59 +0000

There appears to be another viewpoint where much of the Enterprise 3.0 innovation is happening at thought leaders like Salesforce.com and Webex (being acquired by Cisco), as well as at upstarts like Rearden Commerce, eProject, and Trampoline... all sites that focus on increasing efficiency.

By: Janet Johnson

Janet Johnson — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 15:40:06 +0000

I couldn’t agree more. It’s amazing to read the most recent McKinsey Report on Web 2.0 technologies and know that fear of the unknown is preventing so many companies from adopting tools that will absolutely boost the average knowledgeworker’s productivity.

For example, Attensa (at the heart of Enterprise 2.0 and fixing issues caused by Microsoft’s recent VISTA ‘upgrade’) has just released a new version of their feed server that allows managers, team leaders and admins to access new reports geared toward improving feed relevance.

Community feeds can be ranked by the number of subscribers – allowing people to easily share their most valuable resources. Reports can be used to identify must-read feeds and the most effective communications channels for getting information to specific users and groups. Detailed Attention reports are searchable based on feeds, groups and users.

Again, with only 35% of CxOs planning to invest in information gathering resources like RSS, how much productivity will knowledgeworkers waste in the meantime?