I also thought your observations in on this topic are worth referencing here. I especially liked the reference to Clarke’s 3rd law.

“On the other hand, simply discounting every public success story as no more than thinly disguised marketing doesn’t help. I think of these examples as a series of data points that over time let us triangulate in on some underlying lessons.”

That was not my intent. Like you, I believe that the “Office 2.0″ web-based technologies will prove transformational of business practices in the enterprise. But precisely because we are believers we have to look carefully at any story that appeals to our pre-existing biases.

Cisco lays down a number of markers in the story for results in the next 18 months that will be worth revisiting toward the end of 2009. If a third party, for example a customer of Cisco’s, were talking about the benefits of using Enterprise 2.0 it would be more noteworthy, if only because Cisco is selling the technology and stands to benefit more directly from their adoption.

I think because of our personal biases in favor of Enterprise 2.0 and Cisco’s financial incentives we have to take a little harder look at their claims than those of an “end user early adopter.”

The challenge in any public “case study” is how to effectively read between the lines and correctly discount claims. Its especially hard to get the “failure stories” that are the most instructive. On the other hand, simply discounting every public success story as no more than thinly disguised marketing doesn’t help. I think of these examples as a series of data points that over time let us triangulate in on some underlying lessons.

Certainly, there is little hard data anywhere on the impacts of Enterprise 2.0. Nor am I sure that there is any effective way to get it at this stage of development. One of the primary values of this kind of story, at this stage, is to potentially tip the scales toward experimenting and learning and away from demands to “prove it” before we can really say what “it” is.

“The boards and councils have been able to innovate with tremendous speed. Fifteen minutes and one week to get a [business] plan that used to take six months!”

but I would be very cautious that this was anything more than hyperbole. This sentence in the article goes to the heart of my misgivings:

“Taken to its ambitious conclusion, Chambers wants customers to remake their companies in Cisco’s image, a prospect possible only because of their dependence on Cisco technology.”

There is little proof of a new level of competitiveness beyond a couple of anecdotes and a cost reduction benchmark comparing the organization at the height of the bubble:

“Across the company, Ricci says, fiscal 2008 saw “a tenfold increase in new projects.” And he points out that operating expenses have been trimmed from about 38% at the height of the tech boom to between 35% and 36% today: “We’re shaving 2% to 3% of profit off of every dollar of revenue we get in.”

it’s always easy to start new projects, and anyone who hasn’t cut expenses from how they were operating at the height of the bubble probably didn’t survive.

One of the hallmarks of a real test case would be some false steps and clear lessons learned. Most new technologies don’t work in the beginning and require a long period of experimentation and process re-design. This story is just too wonderful. And I say this as an everyday user of Office 2.0 technologies.