Advice: Strive for Improvement, Not ‘Enterprise 2.0′
by Joe McKendrick
In my work on the service oriented architecture side of the equation, there’s been quite a bit of controversy over the way SOA has been pitched to organizations. Many observers say there is too much emphasis on implementing “SOA” for SOA’s sake, instead of focusing on solving the business problems at hand.
Could Enterprise 2.0 proponents make the same mistake — trying to sell the business on “Enterprise 2.0,” instead of addressing specific business problems or opportunities.
Bertrand Duperrin, consultant at blueKiwi Software and Enterprise 2.0 thought leader, raised this issue in a recent post. Duperrin observes that “2.0 projects” tend to be “isolated from the ‘real enterprise’ in order to proven itself from any side effect of something that’s still not well understood…”
Duperrin recommends to help companies to visualize things “according to
what they are today and according to their very nature.” As part of this approach, he states that the goal should never to simply “become an enterprise 2.0″ organization.
The goal of any and all efforts is to “improve the way things are done everyday,” Duperrin relates. And this consists of identifying the primary goal of the enterprise, which is fairly straightforward: “Make money. Period.” He adds that this is “the only indisputable goal.”
That in turn leads to an “undisputable consequence,” he continues: “Companies spend their time trying to organize themselves in order to produce as efficiently as possible.”
Enterprise 2.0 approaches can pave the way to new efficiencies, and play vital roles in improving business processes, as well as open new avenues. And these are the points that will generate business enthusiasm for these new approaches.
