Perspective: Productivity Paradox
by Paula Thornton
Stop the presses! Joe raised a very significant “Elephant in the living room” issue in his recent post, Enterprise 2.0’s Productivity Perception Paradox.
Can we bring to light and clearly debunk the prevailing understanding that anything 2.0 is specifically related to collaboration and the likes of blogs and wikis? That’s where the productivity concerns are coming to bear. These could/should have CONSIDERABLE validity if/when there is not relevant architectural (don’t think just physical) and governance thought put forth (WikiPedia would not be as successful as it is without the underlying structure and governance — minimal as it is — that shapes it).
There is no Paradox here. There is likely a bit of paracusis (or, selective hearing). Clearly, it is middle management that mis-understands the potential of Enterprise 2.0 more than CEOs, according to the FASTforward07 presentation covering the survey conducted by The Economist [video].
But don’t just take my word for it. I’ve seen a lot of other pieces that illustrate potential outside of the ‘feared’ functions, I just can’t remember them all right now. If you find one…post them to the comments here (I’ll do the same).
Clearly, there should be some concern…I’ve seen too many instances where blogs and wikis are randomly rolled out without any thought. We’ve learned a lot about blogs over time. At one time we all randomly started our own blogs, but learned that we couldn’t have conversations with ourselves (well, we could, but that’s not very healthy). Except for people who are brands unto themselves, the rest of us have to rally around a conversation (ala. Enterprise 2.0). To assume that blogging is about giving every employee a place to have their own blog instance is just naive.
Enterprise 2.0 requires design above and beyond technical implementation.
