I recently received a review copy of Forrester TechRadar For Vendor Strategists: Enterprise Web 2.0 - How Product Strategists Should Approach A Maturing Web 2.0 Market, Q4 2008 by G. Oliver Young with Gil Yehuda, Kyle McNabb, Peter Burris, Sara Burnes, Zachary Reiss-Davis. This is a very comprehensive document that goes into great detail on the future of enterprise 2.0 technologies. They focused on technologies considered most appropriate for employee collaboration and included 11 technologies: blogs, forums, mashups, microblogs, podcasts, prediction markets, RSS, social bookmarks, social networks, widgets, and wikis.  They begin the report with useful definitions of each tool that also include use cases, some vendors, and estimated costs to implement.

One of the most interesting parts was a chart that conveyed the current status and predicted success for the Forrester 11.  Some were just starting on their journey (microblogs), others had reached their high point (podcasts and forums) but none were on their way down. Here is the breakdown but predicted success: 

Significant success: social networks and wikis

Moderate success: blogs, forums, mashups, prediction markets, RSS, widgets

Minimal success: microblogs, podcasts, social bookmarks

I would generally agree with these predictions on the tools as isolated entities. I would move mashups to the top category and social bookmarks to the moderate category. In my discussions with vendors, mashups are being increasingly used as the application development platform underlying many tools. So it is both getting harder to separate them and they are becoming more pervasive. I think social bookmarks provide a useful utility that is getting integrated into other tools.

However, my major concern is looking at these tools in isolation. I see an increasing movement among vendors to provide integrated platforms that make use of a number of these tools.  Even a very focus tool like Connectbeam combines social networking with social bookmarking and integrates it with search. Broader platforms like Traction make use of blogs, wikis, forums, and, most recently microblogging.  Deki Wiki and Central Desktop combine many of these tools with a wiki platform under the covers. I could go on. In fairness to the Forrester group, they did say that some tools such as microblogging will make it as a feature rather than as a standalone tool. I just think the analysis should make more mention of integrated platforms.

Some of the other highlights include the finding that none of the enterprise 2.0 technologies are at risk of obsolescence as no replacements are on the horizon. They also said that the business value will accrue at a relatively slow pace. They argued that while consumers can dramatically alter their behavior in weeks and months, it’s much more difficult to move thousands of workers in an enterprise to go in one direction. This may likely be the case for enterprise wide adoption in large organizations. The successes that I have seen are more at the small to midsize business level or divisions of larger organizations.

The reports adds that RSS’s function for repurposing content is underappreciated in the enterprise which is an excellent point. People need to be more creative here. Another conclusion finds social networks becoming the focal point for enterprise 2.0 in organizations. They wrote, “Social networks provide context to content. Whereas information management traditionally focused on the information itself, employees will seek to connect with the people who created and care about the same information they care about.” I could not agree more.

The report finds that wikis show evidence of helping transform collaboration in the enterprise.  A number of the vendors, such as Traction, Deki Wiki, and Central Desktop mentioned above, as well as many others, are using a wiki platform but adding a lot of functionality on top. I think this is where the future lies.  The report goes into great detail and I have just covered a few highlights. It appears to be a useful state of the industry. I have taken a few minor exceptions, as noted above, but it largely rings true.  I want to see a next report on the trend towards integration of functionality into broader platforms.

There is also a version of this report for KM professionals – see Forrester TechRadar™ For I&KM Pros: Enterprise Web 2.0 - Wikis And Social Networks Are Ready To Deliver High Value To Your Enterprise, Q4 2008 by Gil Yehuda with Kyle McNabb, G. Oliver Young, Sara Burnes, Zachary Reiss-Davis. I have written on a number of occasions that the advent of enterprise 2.0 proivder knowledge management professionals with a great opportunity to play a leadership role in their organizations.  This reports provides useful guidance on the some actions that KM people might take. It begins with some of options the organizations face.

On one hand, waiting for IT to provide approved Web 2.0 tools leads to competitive disadvantage. On the other hand, using the tools available externally puts information at risk. In addition, downloading and running Web 2.0 tools on internal servers increase IT headaches. I have argued before, as other have, that Web 2.0 is not enterprise 2.0. I agree with the report that none of these options are good ones. Within the enterprise you need to adopt tools that were designed for business use within the enterprise. Some of these tools can be cloud based but they also need to be business based. If you are a KM professional who wants to play a leadership role in the implementation of enterprise 2.0, this report will provide useful explanations and guidance. There is a lot of detail here.