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A point I think Tom is missing is that hype is not bad. Without any hype, it is difficult to convince business leadership to explore capabilities. Hype certainly has some downsides, but with something to talk to executives about the merits of technology, you don’t get time on their calendar. You can’t create an internet on your intranet, but you can harness the advantages of the technology.
Tom, why is the semantics of Web 2.0 your issue. In my mind the other terms have worn out any effect. Business leaders are tired of the KM terms and vendors burned out the internal venture capital to invest in new ways to innovate.

Jim, 20 minutes ago you mentioned 250 people are participating. great! you also asked a question which I believe you said was from the participants. where can I see the questions/comments that are occuring during this great debate? Sorry if this is obvious to others; I’m new to this site, first time user today. thank you.

The notion of “giving up control” has for a long time been a maxim of the field of organizational development … is’t :implementation”, “emergence” experimenting with unleadhung ,,,, Tom just making the point that you didn’y need the tools to do this unleashing.

Aren’t these tools and the fact that they are all connected and now MUCH more visible .. the issue.

Won’t implementation make the field of OD much more important ?

Aren’t = Isn’t

Great discussion, thanks for hosting this!

A thought I had was that a lot of the issues discussed seem like what’s discussed under the umbrella of Knowledge Management, but wasn’t framed as such… why aren’t these issues looked at from the KM perspective? Doesn’t the term “Enterprise 2.0″ just refer to an evolution of the KM toolset/availability of KM channels?

Thanks again,
- Lee

Wow,

Very Interesting debate today. I was very skeptical about Tom in terms of him debating Enterprise 2.0 BEFORE todays debate. After the dust has settled…I must say I FULLY agree with all the points that Tom brought up on the call.

Up to now I have been evangelizing Enterprise 2.0 as a seachange within corporations when in actuality it is …via a few new tools…simply another way of doing business in an Enterprise.

Thus I will be updating my message and wiki etc …to get rid of the term Enterprise 2.0 and change the terminology to something less flashy but more REAL WORLD.

Also…anyone else notice on the call the animosity from Tom (Who give him his FULL due..was VERY prepared for the call) towards Andrew? Wonder if that is a Babson College versus Harvard type thing?

Anyway..thanks for putting on this debate via Fast Forward…Many of us have some rethinking and or at least downplaying of the Enterprise 2.0 bandwagoning we have been advancing lately

I think that most of the successful KM applications were workflow aligned and when KM was a separate document repository outside of business processes, it was much less successful. Then it became managing knowledge rather than supporting work. I think there is a parallel with web 2.0. Tom seemed to use the blog or wiki outside a work process as a strawman. Many of the documented success stories in enterprise 2.0 have been when a team replaced email with web 2.0 type tools (rather they be blogs, wikis or some of the newer workflow apps that have emerged). When web 2.0 or enterprise 2.0 tools are aligned with workflow to make process and participation more transparent and more efficient there are documented business benefits. I know team workspaces have existed for some time but they did not have the same impact. Blog as speaking platform can work in the right situation but web 2.0 as project enablement works most of the time.

Below you’ll find many of the questions and comments that were being posted into the GoToWebinar chat during the discussion. We’re sharing them here in case anyone wants to expand on them or take them up in their own follow-up comments or blogposts. As you’ll find, they lack a bit of context as some were in response to comments being made by Tom and Andy at the time. Hope you find them of interest!

QUESTIONS

Can you speak to legal issues stemming from sharing best practices that fringe on Intellectual?

Do your guests consider Enterprise 2.0 to be primarily an issue of technology (i.e., something we might buy from vendors),

or, is culture and process an important component?

Do you see major collaboration/content sharing platforms (e.g. SharePoint) basically eclipsing social networking/web 2.0 functionalities with the next version (e..g, sharepoint 2009), whereby we won’t even be discussing this web 2.0 concept any more? Where document management/wiki creation/etc are just variations on the larger scale.

Is the knowledge component of power (heirarchy and structure, etc.) the real difference in Enterprise 2.0? That management no longer can depend upon knowledge as key differentiator for personal power changes the nature of organizations and workplace dynamics?

What is more important Web 2.0 tools or new forms of social engineering to increase productivity? And are they mutually exclusive?

Doesn’t the enterprise with the common desktop authoring sw introduce a very different environment that the open internet?

Web tools are essential for a non-common platform. wikis work on the internet bc there isn’t a common authoring tool.

Doesn’t MS with OFFICE and SHAREPOINT interaction (MOSS) drive to a DESKTOP 2.0 environment? Especially as 2009 moves towards Office Web delivery?

Andy has cited ease of use as one of the tenets of E2.0 applications. But what are the others that differentiate E2.0

From legacy enterprise apps like Notes? What are the really compelling value props that will motivate enterprises to

adopt new E2.0 apps?

I’d like to hear more discussion about how important it is that the tools are designed around the intended user experience. This seems to me to be the key factor in ease of use and the adoption of the tools by the users. What are your thoughts on this? Agree? if not, why?

I run a On Demand Software company that actually makes a product thet is used in the Enterprise. But I agree with Tom in that there is too much fluff and too much next big thing thinking in the IT industry. Business managers who pay the PO’s do not care about BuzzWords.

Gentlemen: Isn’t this a question of changing organizational behavior and attitude rather than a question of technology? If an organization does not embrace the behavior that calls for a 2.0 or 1.75 approach, all technology of the world won’t help.

What are your thoughts on “non-official” blogs and Facebook groups popping up for employees to collaborate in spite of non collaborative corporate cultures?

I think Andy is on to something with the “behaviour” concept. I think he is spot on! It’s the behaviour that matters, not the tools.

Are there any comparisons of companies, one of which successfully implemented enterprise 2.0 and another that didn’t, where we can see how the e2.0 user succeeded and the luddite org failed, or was less successful?

Can we move away from wordsmithing and start talking about the value of these apps and how to drive their adoption in the enterprise?

I think Tom is misinterpreting what “Enterprise 2.0″ is. It does not mean “The second version of the Enterprise”, or “The Enterprise is twice as good as before”. Enterprise 2.0 is a takeoff on “Web 2.0″ which represents technologies that promote a more interactive or social version of the web. Enterprise 2.0 is the application of those technologies by enterprises.

If our goal is to align employees with corporate strategy, does Business Process Management provide the a comparable visibility as enterprise 2.0?

Was Lotus 123 an impactful technology? Before it came along, we could use paper, pencils, and calculators to do everything that the electronic spreadsheet could do. But there’s no doubt that the electronic spreadsheet had a huge effect on business productivity.

Management by walking around the globe? If the world has been “flattened” it’s not because all of the “partners” in a distributed ecosystem are all flying around to meet each other. That would kill the cost savings of that entire model.

Can we talk about how letting go of control… which tom seems to have problem with… is essential for embracing a successful E2.0 initiative?

The meritocratic filtering of ideas in a free market corporate forum is a much better way of getting early warning signals in a corporation than “MBWA” !! This is devolving into a fundamental philosophical discussion — what’s better: traditional autocratic hierarchies or flattened participatory meritocracies?

It seems like the discussion is really dealing with issues of Knowledge Management, but KM isn’t used as a term as such; why is that?

Lubricating conversations between your team and identifying experts throughout the org with E2.0 tools is a huge benefit of going down this road.

It seems like the Enterprise 2.0 examples represent only marginal changes; will this new toolset really fundamentally transform organizations, or will this toolset only complement existing processes?

Being in favour of the concept Enterprise 2.0 one question still remains. How does your organisation keep a sense of direction in this p2p-based environment?

What specific CEO’s motivations would push them to buy new tools and services (to get the methods)?

In those examples of successful web 2.0 deployments is particpation induced/mandated or is it only successful when it is intrinsic to a broader common, otherwise unfulfilled need of the participants?

Some of the most successful KM applications were work process aligned. It seems that some of the best applications for web 2.0 are not open ended blogs or wikis but workflow web 2.0 applications over siloed email. Tom is using the former as a straw man.

Loose frameworks + emergence is a reasonable model. Emergence as a scientific concept/theory doesn’t pre-suppose a complete absence of rules/boundaries, but over-architecting is something that clearly has problems from a software development point of view. A 1-3 year development cycle means that organizations miss out on opportunities to EXECUTE during that cycle. Good enough vs perfection out of the box is what things like Agile Development, Lean Thinking, and Six Sigma are about. Yes/no?

To flip the question around, Tom, What are the benefits of control?

From non-IT manager’s perspective, was it really possible to do these things before? How many implementations of previous tools didn’t really work for people?

How does Web 2.0 adoption/success relate to generation gaps? Like generation X vs generation Y vs Baby Boomers. Specifically as it relates to time horizons and technology literacy rates?

Do you see the “Enterprise 2.0″ definition limited to wiki, blog and social networking tech? Or would you expand that to include “self service tech” such as do it yourself web apps, databases as a service, web office and web meeting tools?

Has Tom read Gary Hamel’s books on the “Future of Management”–that the corporation squashes creativity and innovation?

Wikipedia may not be Enterprise 2.0, but what happens when businesses apply the same model to build up their own Wikipedia. What gives?

COMMENTS

But the value comes from the netwoek effects, and only a small number of big enterprises had Lotus notes

Previous collaboration tools (like Notes) are not user-friendly. The impact of user experience can’t be underestimated in

this.

Parts of this discussion are relevant and fascinating…but there’s too much stereotypical college professor quibbling

over semantics for most of us

But where’s the corporate library now? Most organizations don’t have one…

Let’s not confuse Information Management with Knowledge Management, please… w.r.t. the role of libraries thus far.

They have already LOST control of the message. They need to get over the command & control idea. It’s nonexistent.

Collaboration tools like wikis, blogs etc. combined with readily available internet access allow for scalable, highly available global work forces.

I think that most of the successful KM applications were workflow aligned and when KM was a separate document repository outside of business processes, it was much less successful. Then it became managing knowledge rather than supporting work. I think there is a parallel with web 2.0.

Yes. The Enterprise 2.0 environment (for shorthand purposes here.. I personally am not too hung up about whether something should be called 2.0 or not) characterized by the tools (wikis, blogs, RSS, etc.) provides the “connectivity” called for in KM theory. It was called for in KM theory, but not so much addressed in (generally) KM implementation initiatives. yMuch of what was addressed by KM over the past decade was the architecture and functionality of taxonomies, database, info retrieval capability, re-use of knowledge “objects” and so on. This fit better, at that time, with the prevailing management-science derived mindset efficiency as a primary driver of productivity.

The aspect(s) of KM that was less addressed back then (and brought up in the McAfee / Davenport dialog) was the access to and use of collaboration practices, tools and the embedding of those in ongoing work design. Back then this was the province of organizational development theory and practice. As a work design practitioner, I can assure you that collaboration was not widely discussed in most workplaces until the late 90’s. Previous work design involved separating and segmenting knowledge and accountability (take a look at any of the most-widely-used job evaluation schemes, job evaluation being the assessment of how a job is designed and where it belongs in an organization’s designed structure). Yes, there were books and workshops about organizational culture, and (starting in the early 90’s) more and more books and pronouncements about learning and ongoing change and the importance of effective leadership.

BUT … the tools and web services that underly what we are calling Web 2.0 have begiun to enable more easily, more widely and more ubiquitously the kinds of things that OD theory and practice called for but were only able to work with as “interventions”, as attempts to make smallish changes to work processes, to the why-and-how of people doing work in a highly organized and highly structured setting.

I think this is why there has been so much talk back-and-forth about emergence versus architected work design. We are coming from an era where it was highly architected using one dominant model in which people would talk and exchange and share and do all the things that are now accessible with social software in connected environments .. but they would do this outside the formal architected environment. It went on, and it was the grease, the enabling mechanism .. it just wasn’t visible as “work” .. except in the arenas where it was acceptable, the less-defined and higher-value “knowledge work”, or in other words, the stuff senior managers and executives did ( talk in meetings, sharing questions and viewpoints and other sources of information and knowledge about something or other).

The era we are moving into lets more people do more of this .. and it does not fit easily into the ways that we still design work. The “connectivity” afforded by social software and a much more highly interconnected (tools, infrastructure and people ) environment willkeep teaching us more and more about the need for new ways to design work.

It’s been building up and coming at us for a long time. The connectivity was essentially missing, or was not the first part of KM theory to be addressed a decade or so ago. Social computing in the workplace, what was called KM previously and enterprise 2.0 (whatever it is and will become) belong together, in my opinion.

The combination will have a large impact on organizational sociology. I would bet that how we design work will change a great deal in the next 5 to 10 years. The impact I suggest on organizational sociology has also been building up and coming at us for a couple of decades .. check out how management and leadership development curricula have changed (and not changed) over the past three decades.

At this point, almost nothing is “entirely new” but that doesn’t mean that the incremental evolution and impact of combined “newness” doesn’t add up to something pretty darn powerful. Briefly mentioned in the debate, price and usability, and thus, adoption of systems from the post 9/111 and dotcom boom is clearly changing the way organizations use systems, call that what you like.

Can’t type today - clearly meant 9/11.

While I’m here, Andrew’s point on differences between invention and innovation from previous debate, absolutely agree, and that’s what I’m getting at. A return to simplicity via loose integration is a major differentiation point from the world of Lotus Notes (as most know it), and other systems.

To Tom’s points, yes, alot of this seems like the return of KM, Portals, and Collaboration. And that’s a bad thing? For those that didn’t get it (culturally, mentally, monetarily), I’d be happy to see them get on the wagon the 2nd (or 27th) time around the block.

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