Comments on: Awareness Research on Enterprise 2.0 Adoption

By: Bill Ives

Bill Ives — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 01:37:06 +0000

Alan

You raise a valid point about the response rate. However, there is no way of knowing if that inflated the results pro enterprise 2.0. It just raises the margin of error. You could make a case in each way that those with a view to push pro or con enterprise 2.0 views could be more motivated to respond, especially if threaten IT people were motivated to respond. I am very glad you enjoy the blog. Keep up the comments. Bill

By: Alan Dix

Alan Dix — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:39:13 +0000

Just reading the intro to the report gives a slightly different take on the results presented here.
The Awareness report indicates that the survey went to 60,000 people and of those 112 people completed the survey. So let’s bear in mind that this is 2/10 of 1% that responded. Don’t get me wrong – I am pro Web 2.0, am evangelising within my own company, and follow the Fastforward blog with a tremendous amount of interest – but you need to give me and the other readers the correct info. By leaving out the response rates you have made the findings overly positive, which is not the case, much as I would like it to be.

That aside – keep up the good work – I find the Fastforward blog required reading

By: Bill Ives

Bill Ives — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:27:59 +0000

Jason – you raise excellent points. I see so many company blogs that have good content and few responses or inbound links from other sources. They do not take the extra steps, including those that you describe, to become part of community. As a bit of self promotion , I am working with a number of firms to help them take these extra steps that you list and others. If firms are not committed to taking these extra steps with blog, it will have limited effectiveness and I think they will be disappointed in the end – unless, of course, they are only doing the blog to simply say they have one and not to reach an audience. Bill

By: Jason Cormier

Jason Cormier — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:39:59 +0000

Great post Bill.

“…the fact that they have limited resources and understanding to drive a successful Web 2.0 project,” is the greatest issue we have recognized. A simple example of this is a company blog. You pay for it, designate the person or people who will contribut to it, then proudly proclaim your use of social media, web 2.0 tools.

Not long after that, the blog dries up: Contributors become discouraged. Confidence in what to write about and why anybody cares starts lacking. Nobody comments, not many subscribe, you know the drill.

Understanding how to track and identify key influencers, and where the relevant conversations are taking place online is an essential practice to avoiding that problem. Then you must understand how to interact with those influencers in order to actually join the conversation (as opposed to trying to create a new one).

There are many moving parts to all of this, but I think you get the gist of what I’m saying: The tools are half the battle. How they work with other pieces of your business, and what to do with them is the other half.