Earlier today I posted an quick intro to Social Business Design on my own blog which explains a bit about each of the four archetypes of a social business.

I thought it would be worthwhile to dive in a bit deeper here on the FastForwardBlog because I always get such good, and candid, feedback from everyone here.

Diving in to Social Business Design: The Dynamic Signal
The concept of the “real time enterprise” is not new. The idea that organizations can compete more effectively through faster decision making and streamlined operational efficiencies has been applied in all types of organizations. Measurement is at the center of a social business design and the ability to measure an organization in real time will be critical to the future health of a social business, this is why data availability will be critical and why the Dynamic Signal will be the new organizational backbone.

In the past the concept of a real-time enterprise was driven by data integration and other projects which focused on re-factoring existing enterprise systems and processes in order to generate large amounts of real-time data. While the concept was sound, these projects, such as Enterprise Application Integration exercises, have been estimated to have failure rates as high as 70%.

The interesting thing about the nature of these projects is the rigidity of their design and implementation. The same systems-level design discipline that needed to be applied to application integration flowed through the entire project and resulted in very few tangible or personal outcomes for the end user. Many projects have also been extremely rule and process focused, which always seemed counter-intuitive to me.

This systems and data approach resulted in a view of the real-time enterprise which was almost entirely application and process based. In retrospect it is easy to understand why this happened: It was the first time in history that systems were available to generate this level of data and the prospect of intelligently linking these data creation software and systems was exciting.

In the past we wanted to create data buses in order to connect systems together. We thought that if we could standardize rules, share data and integrate interfaces then we would be home free. The proof is in the pudding however, and the world is sadly a much messier place than we imagined.

The concept of the Dynamic Signal is a conceptual step beyond the Enterprise Service Bus and introduces data interchange with a distinctly social approach. While traditional data buses have been designed to ship data between applications and have put systems at the center, a Dyanmic Signal is a user-first approach to data generation which means that events are generated primarily based on user actions and interactions, but there is still room for systems-level participation in the stream.

The Perfect Dynamic Signal
Developing the perfect Dynamic Signal for an organization is one half design work and one half implementation. Designing a Dynamic Signal does not mean just creating a stream of data and events, but defining the user-relevant outcomes and identifying how those can be leveraged.

The perfect dynamic signal will combine existing enterprise data sources and will allow for user-created events to be added to the stream. These sources should include outside services as well as internal sources. I have seen a few really interesting enterprise systems lately which take different approaches to integrating third parties such as Facebook, Twitter and cloud based services like Salesforce and Webex.

Adding the Metafilter
Creating the Dynamic Signal infrastructure for an organization means that all people in the enterprise can understand what is happening and they can contribute to those activities just-in-time when needed. This presents a new problem however: Filter Failure. Overloaded inboxes, thousands of tweets, millions of events and data points all fly by and the user is often left with very little ability to filter, prioritize, share or collaborate on those items.

A Metafilter, when added to a Dynamic Signal, is a key component of ensuring that a Social Business infrastructure is manageable and customizable by the user. Metafilters can be simple and straightforward filters, but they can also be dynamic and highly integrated content managers which can be built by individual users or through Ecosystem participation. It is through the use of an enterprise ecosystem that we can leverage social network and work related data to create stronger metafilters.

Will we get to the real time enterprise?
It would be easy to dismiss a Dynamic Signal approach to building a Social Business as doomed for failure based on the success rates of past IT based information management projects, but it would be a mistake.

For the first time we are seeing a complete set of ideas emerge which are applicable on both a strategic and implementation level. The four major archetypes of Social Business Design can be integrated to move past simple data interchange and in to a world of work in which end-users are in control and through which they can collaborate in real time. Without this framework it was easy to miss the need to develop strong ecosystems and intelligent metafilters in addition to a dynamic signal.

I am looking forward to being able to start talking about some fantastic case studies which illustrate these concepts, and welcome any insights or experience you might have in developing a real time enterprise system.

Right now however, it is mostly commercial vendors creating enterprise social software products, both as on-premise and SaaS based services. Innovation and thought is being driven almost entirely by these vendor, and while that is healthy, we also need to consider the opportunities for Open Source to play a role.

So, what’s next for Open Source in the enterprise? Specifically, what’s next for Open Source and Social Software?

I was watching Fred Wilson talking about the next layer of the social software stack. He says it is Aggregation and Filtering.

I think he is right, and that same thinking extends out of social software and it applies to open source as well. Right now there is an open source alternative for almost any commercial enterprise social software application. In fact, there are usually more and better open source solutions. What is missing however is the ability to aggregate and filter the things we are creating in those tools, inside the firewall.

The Economist says that Open Source has “won the argument” but that it must now find its way in a world where Cloud Computing is becoming a dominate force. This is another example of the many challenges ahead for Open Source.

What we don’t have is an open source suite of tools which can not only be an effective alternative to closed source social software for the enterprise, but can be effectively aggregated and filtered to create an entirely new, and better, experience.

We need an Open Source Social Business Stack which can serve as a foundation to help companies get started with social software, much in the same way the LAMP stack makes development cheaper, a social stack need to provide a set of software which, when aggregated together, create a complete solution.

We have seen SLATES and FLATNESSES, which I believe are great frameworks for defining the elements of enterprise social software. The stack I have been working with is similar in it’s approach to SLATES and FLATNESSES, but it is meant to be more of a deployment-ready stack of enterprise open source social software.

If we break out the stack, I believe that the tools necessary to deploy a foundation of enterprise social software fall in to 4 categories and 2 more general buckets.

Community is the result of a strong set of Profiles and Collaboration tools. The ability to Measure results and effectively calculate ROI comes from building Streams, Filters and Intelligence tools.

This stack provides a foundation to socialize and redefine existing business processes. Like a development stack, these tools will need to be open and interoperable in order to be effective.

So, can Open Source play a role in the future of enterprise social software, or should everyone sit back and wait for the large vendors to provide all the answers? I believe that open source can put renewed momentum behind social tools in the enterprise. To see how close we are, I tried to put together an ideal open source stack.

This is not meant to be an exhaustive list, and it is a work in progress, but I think it identifies some of the best available open source tools to get you started deploying enterprise social tools.

Wikis have been leaders in both the Enterprise and Open Source worlds for a long time. Collaboration tools such as PBwiki (now PBWorks) and Deki Wiki are two of the best enterprise wikis available, and they are open source. MediaWiki, the software that runs Wikipedia, is also open source.

Buddypress is one of the most interesting new projects this year. They are developing an open source community, profiles and blogging platform that I think will change community software the way Wordpress (Buddypress’ parent project) has changed blogging. Buddypress also includes a great streaming and filtering capability called “The Wire”, which seems to be evolving in definition and specification. Lovdbyless is another community platform project to watch. Both of these will be extremely powerful when used inside the firewall.

Jboss Portal Server and Liferay are two of the biggest enterprise open source stories, and their filtering and intelligence capability will be a powerful tool when combined with the other elements of a complete stack.

Finally, Noserub is a stream aggregation engine which can be used to centralize enterprise events and activity, much like a Friendfeed for the enterprise. It would need a lot of customization however, but it is a start. Laconica is the best available micro-messaging tool and it is giving the commercial SaaS vendors a viable alternative. Jive’s OpenFire and eJabberd are two of the best, and most easily integrated, enterprise instant messaging servers out there and offer a potentially powerful integration platform through which enterprise users could intact with, or get information from, other enterprise tools.

These filtering and aggregation tools are crucial because they allow us to knit the stack together, instead of deploying a small set of isolated tools.

What am I missing? What other tools do you think need to be included in a foundational stack to get organizations up and running? I have created a Google Spreadsheet here where you can add entries and help me build a list of Open Source Enterprise 2.0 tools.

The next step is to find some integration points for these tools. Noserub could be a great starting point for integration, or a solid open source RSS reader might be a good start as well.

Please head on over and feel free to add categories, edit entries and help keep things up to date.

Enterprise 2.0 takes the stage
Andrew McAfee burst on to the scene in April 2006 with “The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration”. This article did several things, the most significant of which was to coin the term “Enterprise 2.0″ at a time when “Web 2.0″ was at the height of its visibility, and it also served as a rallying point for social software enthusiasts.

Andrew also illustrated several important collaboration scenarios enabled by Web 2.0 type tools. These scenarios, while important, could be seen as incremental by executives and strategic thinkers within an organization. Andrew called it “Emergent Collaboration” for a reason however, and I suspect that reason is that there is an opportunity here which is not simply incremental, but is instead new and unpredictable. The problem here is that Enterprise 2.0 itself does not, and should not, offer a framework to deal with that emergence.

Enterprise 2.0 has given us the beginnings of a technical framework for a new type of organization, but it has not provided us with a conceptual model that is robust enough to create a more complete business design. Enterprise 2.0 was never meant to do this, and it probably never will.

The result of this so far has been an incredible amount of progress in the thought behind the technical underpinnings of collaboration, but little real progress in understanding the effects of these same concepts on the larger organization and marketplace.

Incremental effects
In late 2007 I wrote a post in which I stated that there is no Enterprise 2.0 Market. I believe that is still true today, but I think we have a better understanding of why.

As it stands, Enterprise 2.0 purchasing decisions are not at all differentiated from other IT purchasing decisions. This is the result of the incremental nature of collaboration in isolation from a more strategic framework. A document is a document whether it is created by one person or by 15. If the only purpose of that process is to create a document, then the job is done. This is not a result that is going to turn entire industries on their head. This does not affect the strategic decision making process of a business.

Almost every Enterprise 2.0 process is essentially incremental when viewed in isolation, and generally the purchasing decision for these tools are also made in isolation, making the purchase difficult to justify at times, and impossible at others. For example, Tagging content to make it more easily visible is also incremental on old methods of adding metadata to content. Knowing who an expert is on some topic is incremental because it simply saves time in finding that person the hard way. The list goes on.

These are all positive and improved processes and technologies, don’t get me wrong, but it is their simplistic (by which I mean isolated and not connected to a larger feedback/inform process) nature that continues to give me pause.

Thinking strategically about Social Business
We need to move past this isolated and highly technical thinking towards a larger conceptual model which can be referenced to make both technical purchasing decisions, but also strategic business decisions.

A few months ago I wrote that Social Media needs to “grow up”, but what I didn’t say is that the same problem holds true for the Enterprise 2.0 community. We have not made progress at any other level than the IT decision making realm we have settled in, and it is time to grow up.

Within an appropriate business framework Enterprise 2.0 will be able to mature and gain some comfort from a stronger definition of its role. Customers will be able to make more complete decisions about which tools and processes they need in order to transform their business to some new end.

So far the vast majority of our thinking has been focused on the IT element of a social business transformation. We are asking questions like “Which tools should I use to collaborate?”, “What are the case studies of social networking in a company?”, “What are the results of using twitter in the enterprise?”. I believe that these questions are all too shortsighted and narrow partly because they presuppose the necessity of collaboration, social networking and other Enterprise 2.0 tools, but those are not safe assumptions to make.

The Elements of Transformation

Until now we have defined the elements of change to be things such as SLATES and FLATNESS. In a macro view of the business however, these elements only address one component of the more significant need to change the organization.

How can we take these concepts of social leverage and apply them to Governance, Management, R&D, Measurement, Markets and also IT? What are these themes that run through each element of transformation and which are unique? Which elements are missing and which should be left out?

We also need to redefine the roles played by each major component of an organization:

• How do the roles of People in an organization change?
• What is the role of Technology in this new organization?
• How is the idea of Process affected?

It is this larger form of growth, an opportunity to become something completely new, that moves us beyond our current state. It is where we can see real transformation that can be translated in to real growth for an organization. It takes us from being something nice to being a strategic advantage.

Lets stop being satisfied with simply defining and re-defining one small piece of a much bigger opportunity. Lets grow up and start telling a story that is going to make people excited. Lets create something that people can really believe in, something we will all really want to be a part of.

A successful social tool will have a community of some sort as its foundation. Flickr, Youtube, Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter are all examples of social tools with community underpinnings.

When these sites were first successful, it was not obvious that their communities were especially divergent, but as time has gone on, each one has become more and more unique. Like tribes, the communities have learned to defend themselves, co-operate to accomplish goals and each has found implicit and explicit ways through which they welcome new people.

This trend might seem obvious in retrospect, and I am sure it has been talked about before, but I get the sense that it is something that is blindsiding most users. The most obvious example of this has emerged with Facebook’s new redesign. The interface update has put Status at the center of the experience, and it has put Facebook head to head with Twitter.

In the past, a lot of us had Facebook and Twitter connected, so that when we updated our status on Twitter, it would also update on Facebook. This worked out pretty well as long as the status update was not the center of the experience on Facebook, but now that it is, things are much more awkward. When I log in to Facebook now, I see primarily the Twitter updates of people who have connected their accounts. This might not seem like a big problem, but as the Facebook and Twitter tribes have diverged, the cross-posting has become noisy. My expectation of what I will see when I log in to Facebook is different than my expectation on Twitter.

With that in mind, here are my 5 reasons you should NOT link you Facebook and Twitter status

1- Facebook is for who you were, Twitter is for who you wish you were

Facebook is a yearbook, Twitter is a masquerade. Facebook cares about your past, Twitter is a clean slate.

The idea of “what are you doing” is different in these different contexts, it doesn’t make sense to cross post between them. Most of your facebook friends are interested in hearing about your kids, or perhaps your vacation, your twitter friends want to know about your new ideas.

2- Facebook is where your ex is

It’s true and you know it. You might want your ex to know you have a new car, lover or are on a wonderful vacation without them, but letting them in to the everyday life you lead on Twitter is probably stepping over the line. Sure they can always go to your Twitter page and get those updates, but then that is their problem.

3- Twitter is manic

If you post something on Twitter you can bank on getting a response most of the time, and it is usually useful. In the world of Facebook, you are more likely to get a comment along the lines of “cool!”. The use of a post on each service is different and it is perceived differently, which makes linking the two more difficult. When you cross-post, you fragment the conversation. That might be fine for you, because you can simple read the comments on each site, but you are doing a disservice to your friends/followers, because they cannot do the same context switching in order to follow the full conversation.

4- Your boss is on Facebook

Enough said, he (probably) isn’t on Twitter (yet)

5- Twitter doesn’t know you are a dog. Twitter is for personas

On Facebook you are you. Twitter doesn’t know or care who or what you are. You can be a brand, an idea, or just yourself, but it doesn’t matter on Twitter. This adds an extra level of complexity to interactions on Twitter that Facebook and many other sites simply are not equipped to handle, and while you may be yourself on both sites, you are going to be interacting with people and things on Twitter that Facebook simply does not have a model for.

I could not agree more.

Peter points out that a large amount of what takes place in the world of Social Media is simply an echo of what someone else in the community has said. It is just too much of the same old stuff.

The larger conversation about using Social Software to transform the enterprise is one we have been having here on the FastForwardBlog for over 3 years now (can you believe that?). I like to think that while the world of Social Media Consultants have been out there giving eachother back rubs, the Enterprise Social Software community has been hard at work. Progress has been slow, but we are starting to see value emerge.

“Value” is an important factor here, and something that should not be ignored. What most people fail to understand is that Value is different from “ROI”, “conversations” and “engagement”. The measure of Value is brutal because unlike many other measures, Value has to be created. ROI is earned (row the boat) but value has to be shaped and made real.

Once you can create real value however, you are able to produce and scale. Learning how to generate simple returns just means that you have to keep working harder to keep returns coming.

And there is the difference for me. There is still a lot of work ahead, years of it probably, but once we start to solve the problems of creating an organization that is built on Social principals, we will have created something new, not simply incremental. This is not Marketing with “Social Media” tagged on the front of it, this is not “Change Management” using Web 2.0 tools. This is something completely new, yet unknown but with the promise of real change and real value.

You can get the President of the United States on twitter (I have no doubt he will be there) and you can have the marketing department of Exxon blogging all day long, but you have not changed the beast, she simply has a nice dress. He has put on some Manolos.

From Social Media to Social Enterprise

I believe that a lot of people who have cut their teeth in the world of Social Media will start to turn their energy in to the transformative work of creating the Social Enterprise and I am happy about it. The problem is so big, and the payoff so large that we need more brains on this thing.

It is, I have no doubt, how governments will change, how Army’s will be more effective, it will save Car Manufacturer’s and it will make life inside the corporation rewarding for everyone from the Chairman to the Cashier.

Nobody cares about how the Industrial Revolution changed marketing, we care about how it made our world (the western world) a better, richer, place. Nobody will care about how Social Media sold 50,000 Whoppers for Burger King, they will care about how it saved us from an unsustainable model in which people are worked as if slaved, indentured to a master and on a leash we call the Blackberry. Buzzing, beeping and screaming: we are ready for this.

Peter says “It is time to transform”. I agree. Do something that really matters. Do something that makes people happier and gives them fulfillment. Give people a chance to create, give them real control, not just a chance to consume — even if it is in a more personal way.

That level of personal control and ownership over my phone line and number is a new phenomenon, and I am starting to wonder what the true impact will be. The phone was originally a shared-service model, starting with party-lines and then the wide availability of direct household lines. A few shifts have already taken place so far that make using the phone a much more personal experience, and there are a few coming changes that are going to have an even bigger impact.

The first major change that has occurred is pretty obvious: Cellphone adoption continues to grow. My nieces and nephews all have them, and their mom and dad both have cellphones. It is is how the family keeps in touch and they are the devices that the kids use to manage their social lives. An average of 188 TXT messages per month are sent by each user in the United States. That number will probably triple or better in the coming 3 years as people shy away from using the phone as an interruptive voice communications tool and more towards asynchronous communications.

A lot of these interesting phone+social shifts have taken place in little pieces. Jaiku and Plazes are examples of services that attempted to couple tightly with the device to create a location and status aware experience. The iPhone has created a platform for dozens of similar applications to spring up on as well, but we still seem to be missing some part of the puzzle.

I asked some folks on twitter today (in the most unscientific way) if they are talking on the phone more or less today than they were 10 years ago. The response was an overwhelming “far less”. Mind you, asking a bunch of fellow Twitter addicts might not be the best sample, but I think it is indicative of a trend. The thing I am not sure about is exactly why we are moving away from voice, and if it is even an actual trend, or if we are just seeing the back end of a cycle.

Will Voice find its way in the social web?

The role of a voice conversation will probably have to change to find new growth markets. The very idea of why, and how, we use the phone will shift. Here are some ideas on what may happen.

The phone number: The phone number will not survive, at least not at its current level of importance. Contact Lists are becoming far more prevalent, and their usefulness is immediatly apparent. If you have ever used a Skype phone (hardware version of skype), you will know what I am talking about. When you pick up the handset you see your contact list right there. You know who is Available, who is around but Idle, and who has marked themselves as being away.

The real time conversation: I am not convinced that the phone, and voice in general, will exist only in a world of real time conversation. The snippet, or a less formal version of what we call Voicemail, could play a more significant role in a social future.

The Handset: Most people I know are now perfectly comfortable talking in to their computers to make a call. We are also increasingly using cellphone that feel and act more like computers than they do a traditional handset. As the tools and hardware get better, I think we will see the passing of the handset as the default tool for voice communication. In car communication tools, Bluetooth headsets that are self contained and new Netbooks will all be important factors.

Presence: We are updating our Facebook status, our Instant Messenger status, we are twittering. Why can’t all these activities inform our phone about what is important to us right now. Whether it is a a voicemail message that reads out my current Twitter status, or one that automatically deny’s certain callers based on what I am doing, there are all sorts of new possibilities that exist in creating mashups of new social tools and legacy systems.

A lot of people smarter than I have been thinking about voice communication for a long time, but I think it is time to start thinking about the changes in terms of sociality, not in terms of technology. VOIP has arrived and it no longer matters, what matters is finding ways to make voice communication more useful and relevant to an everyday life that is increasingly adopting text based communication.

I admit freely that I am attached to the concept. I think it is better than something (whatever that is), and that is creates a lot of value.

I don’t know what the fate of blogging is, but as I think about it I wonder if it can survive without changing. Just in the last 2 years we have seen massive uptake in the creation of content by users, but most of it is now outside of the blogosphere. Status Updates on Facebook, Twitter, new levels of photo sharing and geolocation based services and networks are all becoming the centerpiece of attention.

The idea of user-generated content was once almost exclusively owned by blogging. Blogging was the conversation, blogging was the vehicle, blogging was the network.

Now blogging plays a very small role in all of those things.

Nothing illustrated this better than the recent attacks in Mumbai and the focus that was put on the role of Twitter in tracking the details of that event as it unfolded. There was a time, perhaps just 18 months ago, when the responsibility of that work (providing the infrastructure of the citizen journalist), would have fallen entirely on blogging and to some degree wikis. Not anymore.

It seems at times that blogging is becoming the domain of those people who still have something to say. I am now subscribed to more blogs than I ever have been, but at the same time I would say that I am getting real value from fewer blogs than ever.

The New Luddites
Are bloggers the new Luddites? Those who expect too much value in a single piece of content may have an expectation that is out of date. Much like newsroom editors arguing over the production values of a piece while another station has people sending in grainy pictures from their cellphones, bloggers may simple be caught in the middle of a shift away from production values to immediacy. I believe this has been illustrated throughout history and I examined this phenomenon earlier this year in my post “The Death of Resolution: Immediacy is the new quality”

Here are some themes that I am seeing emerge:

Blogging has become media
More and more blogs are being treated as a media property and many bloggers fall in to the trap of needing to create more content to keep users coming back.

Latency
Blogs are latent in comparison to twitter or text messaging, so the value proposition of blogs as a source of breaking news is losing its luster.

Very little innovation
Blogs have seen very little innovation in the last 5 years. The format has generally stayed the same and, more importantly, the method of interaction has stayed the same. Comments remain the soul source of author/reader interaction.

Tumblr
Platforms such as Tumblr are leading the way in bridging the gap between long form content and micro-sharing of content. Tools like Wordpress need to start thinking about posts as more than just a title and a body, but instead a flexible, sharable and manageable object.

Combining comments/Twitter
I want to be able to twitter a response to a post, effectively taking the conversation in to my own territory where I can comment on it and share it with my own network. When I post a comment on a blog, I am interacting with the author’s social network, and I get a lot less value from it.

I should be able to be logged in to Twitter (Facebook-Connect style system) and tweet my response. It would go in to my own Twitter stream, but would also be kept on the blog and displayed along with other twitters that originated there.

I think I will look in to building a Wordpress plugin that would allow this.

A Distributed Social Network
For blogs to continue to be valuable, they must become something that I can share, save, reuse and re-create. Right now blogs are, for most purposes, none of that.

The Future
I am not sure what the future of blogging is, but I think it is time we started experimenting to see what we can do to keep it relevant.

I get really uncomfortable when I log in to many enterprise systems for a whole host of reasons. Until now it has been easiest for met to blame the platforms themselves.

So the question I have is this: In light of a shift to mobile, the slow but constant inroads being made by social software and the coming net-generation (or whatever you call it) of employees, what is the future of Enterprise Data? What is the true culmination of SOA based enterprise applications? I am convinced that the end product of SOA based platforms IS NOT two applications sharing a little bit of data over their garden walls, I think something far bigger is at play, and I think we are seeing the result in consumer applications already.

My sense is that the future is going to look different than what we are used to today. I believe that data will become more accessible, be more end user directed and will be a fulcrum for collaboration.

I am still squnting my eyes and scratching my head here,. but I get the sense that there is a shift that is coming, and I am more and more convinced every day that the promise of Enterprise Social Software and Enterprise 2.0 will not be fulfilled by a facebook-clone inside the enterprise, but something much deeper and more action-focused.

A few years in, I feel like we (you, me, all of us) are just getting started on the second iteration of this big idea.

For those of you who want to dig in a little deeper on what your options are for enterprise micro sharing, Pistachio Consulting has released a report that examines the state of what is available and what your options are in terms of deployment. You can view or download the report here.

This report is an ideal tool for kickstarting discussions in your organization, and I know how much work Laura at Pistachio has put in to this.

Go get a copy.

Bringing social computing in to your organization in the near term will require measured amounts of tact and enthusiasm. You will need to set a pace that others can maintain, but you must be sure to maintain that pace even through the current climate.

From that post:

Some tips:

• Look inside: Chances are you have at least a few clued-in people. Take them to lunch and and give them some space to share their ideas. If they are really on to something, try to free up some of their workday so that they can experiment
• Listen carefully: There are two conversations going on right now, one about Technology, and one about a Business Ideology. If technology isn’t your thing, then start moving forward with new business ideas and the right technology will emerge, and if you are pegged as a technology person then start opening up the world of low cost options to your colleagues.
• Don’t rush: Major shifts in corporate structure and direction are painful and drawn out exercises. Instead of feeling the need to act, focus instead on assimilating relevant new ideas and contextualizing them around your own strategy.
• Act fast: Low cost and low friction opportunities are now available to everyone, learn to try small. If a transformation is going to take place successfully in your organization, it will be through thousands of small efforts, not one large push.
• Check your ego: Here is the painful part, and one of the secrets. The baseline requirement of Enterprise 2.0 is to learn to let go and to realize that you must learn to trust those around you before you yourself will earn their trust.
• Learn to imagine again: For the first time in almost 70 years business is truly changing, and the possibilities are endless. What does that mean for you?
• You are creating this too: This isn’t about converting to a new ideology, this isn’t even about accepting a new idea, we are early enough in the new world of the New Enterprise that each participant is a creator. There are no masters yet, no old guard or new revolutionaries, there is simply an idea out there that is really starting to take hold, and every disciple is must do double time as a prophet.
• Learn to be ready: Only when you fully realize the potential for your organization can you find the right help. The best and smartest people will not be coming to you, you will have to find them. There is a boom of sorts coming in Enterprise 2.0, so be wary of snake-oil salesmen and instead go out and learn from the gurus and masters who will continue to emerge in the next year and beyond.
• Keep reading: The amount of knowledge, understanding and ideas that are being shared is staggering. Never before in business have so many innovations and creations been available for free. So start reading every relevant blog, article and book you can find, and don’t stop: the ideas will not stop evolving.