I am pleased to report that I will be speaking at KMWorld 2008 in San Jose, California later this year. the working title is "The Emerging Enterprise 2.0 Workplace: Cultural Markers, Competencies, & Core Change Challenges".

I’d like any of you who may be interested to help me, and perhaps help advance the general state of awareness and understanding of the type and scope of impacts the developments of the last several years have brought to the knowledge workplace.

A couple of months ago on this blog there was an interesting discussion unfold around an exploration of KM’s past and Enterprise 2.0’s present and (possible) future titled Retrospective on KM and the Impact of Web 2.0. 

In one camp some commenters gathered around the possibility that the post neatly "outlined the nexus of Enterprise 2.0, Web 2.0, and KM 2.0."  In the other camp the position was taken that:

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1. KM is not adaptive, Web 2.0 is.
2. KM supports collaboration. Collaboration is not social networking; 2.0 supports the latter.
3. KM wants to manage things; 2.0 wants to free things in loosely connected ways

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It seems clear that web services and personal "knowledge management" tools are migrating from the consumer Web into the workplace.  That phenomenon, combined with RSS feeds, wikis, search capabilities that are pushing towards the confluence of intent, imagination and serendipity and the growing scope of interactivity all of us are learning from the constant presence of the Web, may be forcing the issue of fundamentally rethinking the established and still-accepted ways of structuring, organizing and managing knowledge work.  Then again, maybe not ?

I know my position … I have argued for quite a while that the fundamental principles of work design need to change from those underpinning the industrial age to principles that stem from network structures and dynamics and yet still respect relevant core assumptions about domains and bodies of knowledge.  But there are very many other perspectives, concepts and examples that can either rebut or amplify that position.

I’d really like to take a stab at advancing the general debate about the issues cited above, as I believe there is a real opportunity to 1) stimulate the widespread and rapid shedding of obsolete elements of Industrial Age work design, 2) create much wider understanding about the congruence between some of the fundamental concepts of traditional KM and some of the fundamental dynamics of enterprise social computing, and 3) help popularize and make simple and easy to understand why there are real opportunities now for enterprises to (insert cliché here) tap into the potential and collective wisdom of employees and customers whilst also offering (and benefiting from) enriched jobs and more flexible and responsive cultures.

So … what I’d like to do now to  is gather your input in the form of questions, assertions, opinions and links to references such as articles and essays that speak to the differences, similarities, complements and conflicts between the concepts of KM and the use of social computing in the workplace that has been labeled Enterprise 2.0.  With that input there’s a chance I may be able to synthesize the content (mine and yours) to present at KMWorld 2008 that helps to clarify what’s new and useful and what’s not.

That’s what the comments section below is for.  Let’s see if we can create a knowledgeable, practical and useful conversation.

I’d also like to bring your attention to a new book by British author Niall Cook (with foreword by Don Tapscott of Wikinomics fame) titled "Enterprise 2.0 - How Social Software Will Change The Future of Work". 

Evidently I or we are not the only ones who think there are large opportunities for both intelligent, common-sensical and incremental improvements to knowledge work and for radical innovation and fundamental change.

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