Here is another of the growing reports on research that indicates enterprise 2.0 is on the rise. Recently Awareness released a report on “Trends and Best Practices in Adopting Web 2.0 in 2008.” It shows that social media initiatives are on are increasing and continue to evolve. There is a focus on the deeper and broader integration of Web 2.0 technologies with other enterprise systems, enabling greater participation from both internal and external audiences. This is consistent with what I am hearing from others sources ((e.g., Forrester, AIIM, Aberdeen, Gilbane, etc.).

More than half of the respondents were management or senior-level executives, with their roles evenly between marketing, business strategy development and technology. Highlights include:

Employers are starting to allow social media participation more freely in their organizations: The number of organizations that allow social networking for business purposes has increased dramatically to 69 percent in 2008 up from 37 percent last year. The numbers in this paragraph and the next really struck me.

Employers are finding the benefits of using social media: 63 percent are using social media to build and promote their brand, 61 percent are using it to improve communication and collaboration, and 58 percent re using it to increase consumer engagement.

Seventy five percent of employees are already using social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn for business purposes, up 15 percent from 2007. I think it is fine to do this for business social networking. I do it also. However, I would not pick one of these tools for the enterprise social networking tool. (see Enterprise 2.0 is not Web 2.0 nor is it an Oxymoron)

Use of internal-facing communities is on the rise with 6 percent of organizations already reporting they deployed internal-facing communities, while 33 percent indicate their organization plans to implement internal-facing social media initiatives.

Similarly external-facing communities are increasing: 27 percent of respondents said their companies were planning to deploy external-facing communities while only 13 percent indicated their organizations already have external-facing communities.

Online communities directed at specific interests and groups of people allow for more targeted marketing techniques and better results so for this reason 37 percent of organizations have specific areas of focus for their communities, It is great to see the continuing positive research on web 2.0 and enterprise 2.0.

I wonder how the economic downturn will change things. Forrester has predicted that prices will fall for enterprise 2.0 applications. This was not necessarily in response to the current economic crisis bur rather to competition, commoditization, bundling, and subsumption. I will write more about their report soon.

On the other hand, there should be an increased demand for virtual communication to offset the time and costs of physical meetings. Social media partially addresses this issue. There should also be an increased interest in innovation and companies should be more open to change. I recently read a similar thought by Jonathan Schwartz the Sun President and COO and long time blogger. In a recent blog post, Innovation Loves a Crisis, Jonathan shared a memo he sent to Sun’s leader about the role of technology in helping with the current economic crisis, Innovation Loves a Crisis. He writes that many businesses will be most open to change now and he wants Sun to help its customers achieve greater innovation and boost productivity in response to economic challenges that many face.

What do you think?