by Jon Husband
January 28, 2008 at 9:23 pm
· Filed under Blogging, Change, Economics, Emergent, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Social Computing, Enterprise Software, IBM, IT Department, Social Computing, Social Networking, User Revolution, Web 2.0, Web Services, Wisdom of Crowds
This just off the presses at ZDNet …
It won’t be a surprise to most of the FASTForward blog readers, as I think there’s probably a unanimous consensus amongst analysts and pundits who write on this blog that social computing in an enterprise setting and the related architectures of hardware and software is an important and massive shift that will affect knowledge work and organizational structures.
And it’s now clear that Forrester, Gartner, Jupiter, McKinsey, Deloitte Touche, Watson Wyatt, Ernst & Young, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Sun … all the major ‘brand name’ providers of advice and technology to enterprises … are taking the emergence of Enterprise 2.0 very seriously.
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Enterprise Web 2.0 predictions from Forrester
Forrester published a report, “Top Enterprise Web 2.0 Predictions For 2008” ($775, about $100 per page), which concludes that blogs, wikis, and social networking will further gain importance in 2008 as enterprises look to Web 2.0 tools to solve long-standing worker problems.
Not a big revelation.
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..
UPDATE:
Huh ? 42% "Not on our agenda" and 32% "Not a priority" translates into Forrester’s "Web 2.0 will be a 2008 priority" ?
Did that non sequitur get your attention ? It did mine.
The next section of the short ZDNet piece states:
Forrester expects at least half of the 42 percent of enterprises that say Web 2.0 is not on their agenda to make it a priority by year’s end. Here’s why:
First, the IT shops that began experimenting with enterprise Web 2.0 tools for their own use in 2007 — for tasks like help desk ticket resolution, standards and documentation tracking and IT project management — will begin rolling out these tools more broadly to lines of business as they pass IT muster.
Second, CIOs will concede that they cannot quell passionate employees’ use of consumer-oriented or SaaS Web 2.0 tools and will mitigate risk by deploying enterprise-class tools in their stead.
Finally, for IT departments aspiring to be more relevant to the business, enterprise Web 2.0 tools will be a high-impact, low-cost method to show leadership and innovation.
Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Forrester
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So, I had the same arithmetic problem with the graph, but I have an ever bigger problem with Forrester’s “Don’t confuse me with the facts” logic. I mean, c’mon – if you’re going to survey people and they tell you that it’s not a priority, you can’t very well make the case that it *is* a priority, but that they repsondents just don’t know it. This is almost laughable.
I’m surprised that this would come from Forrester.
BTW – they might be right, but that’s opinion and speculation, not “Research.”
Greg, I agree with your points about opinion and specualioon versus definitive research. Forrester’s business model depends upon having something like this to opine, speculate and write about, no ?
Nevertheless, my opinion is that social software and social computing tools and services will continue to spread into and throughout the workplace. I think the capabilities and dynamics are too intrinsic to the nature of knowledge work carried out in the midst of constant flows of information.
But let’s be clear … that is just an opinion on my part.
Ah, Greg, but try taking issue with their logic and they’ll call your employer…
Yeah,
It would certainly seem like the stars are all aligned for social software to hit the big time in the next 1-2 years.
Having been in the space for a while, I fully agree with their assessment that CIOs will not be able to quell the awakening happening as their employees are exposed to social tools on the public internet. Way to go Facebook!
Thanks for the post!
Eric
LOL – they’ll shout “technographics” at me until I break…
in all seriousness, this is part of the reason why I am such a huge fan of the new generation of “open” analyst firms, like Redmonk and Freeform Dynamics. The latter just released a really good report (free) with The Register on the topic of relieving the systems management burden to rival anything from Forrester/Gartner/IDC, etc…
Hey, Eric. If I am not mistaken, we met at the Adobe-sponsored soiree at KMWorld in San Jose ?
Yes, I think, as I noted above, that the use of social computing tools and services is effectively inescapable … computers are everywhere, on every work desk, there’s been ten years or more of increasing emphasis on usability and interoperability, the knowledge workers of tomorrow all use mobile devices and grow up with computers in school, thank Facebook and MySpace, etc. etc. etc. and so on.
Do you know the work of Wim Veen in Holland on “Homo Zappiens” (not Homo sapiens) ?
Greg .. it’s so funny to imagine that people other than professional analysts are reading, researching, thinking and may have valid and useful insights .. or that they can “crowdsource” or “mobsource” information from other aware and knowledgeable people and then do a good job with synthesis.
Indeed!
for the record, I basically agree with your (and Eric’s) conclusions, although one can never underestimate the ferocity of SPs (to borrow a term from Tom Cruise) to try to halt progress.
My objection is not with the conlcusion, but rather with the circuitous (seems too mild) path Forrester took to get there.
Yup …
And, as a long-time management consultant for a large firm (not in IT, but in HR, org design and effectiveness) there’s an incredible amount of packaging often applied to common sense to make a viable business model, notably for the well-paid senior people.
I got tired (very) of selling the same (and inflexible) solutions all the time, as opposed to being able to say what I really think. My income has suffered, but that’s in many ways a different story 
Ever heard of the book The Witch Doctors, about mgt. cnsulting and pundits ?
“My income has suffered, but that’s in many ways a different story”
I’m an expert in this field.
Haven’t heard of the book, but I’ll check it out.
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