The top story of the latest (February 26) issue of InformationWeek is about Enterprise 2.0, and contains a lot of very interesting information. The headline of the main story is "Most Business Tech Pros Wary About Web 2.0 Tools In Business: ‘Enterprise 2.0′ must overcome concerns about security and return to get a foothold in business, InformationWeek Research Finds." but I find most of the content decidedly less pessimistic than this headline. Related stories examine mashups, offerings from major IT vendors, ways to get started, the problems with email and "Why we like the ‘Enterprise 2.0′ label."
Also today in Computerworld is a story on the Defense Intelligence Agency’s use of E2.0 tools like blogs and wikis. I wrote earlier about the great New York Times Magazine story on the same topic. Since then, it appears that momentum has been building. The Computerworld story contains the assertion from Lewis Shepherd, chief of the DIA’s requirements and research group at the Pentagon, that "Across agencies, wikis and blogs are becoming as ubiquitous as e-mail in terms of information sharing." Wow.
I’ll write later with more detailed reactions to this new content. Let me just note for now that these stories are all about the use of new collaboration, information sharing, and personalization technologies, not about how these technologies are developed or how they’re delivered to users. In other words, they’re using something close to the relatively narrow definition I proposed of Enterprise 2.0. As I wrote earlier, E2.0 defined this way engages business executives, managers, and users rather than causing their eyes to glaze over.
What do you think of the InfoWeek and Computerworld stories? What did you learn? What did you strongly agree or disagree with? And what other required reading on this topic have you come across recently? Leave a comment and let us know.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I think we can learn a lot from both articles. And more importantly from contrast between the suspicion and doubt that Enterprise 2.0 technologies are treated with in the business sector (InformationWeek article) and the unbridled enthusiasm of the Military intelligence sector (ComputerWorld).
The difference stems from the culture of the organizations. While Military Intelligence (not necessarily military) is all about knowledge sharing, corporation rarely regard it as a goal and so do corporate employees.
If corporations want to promote knowledge sharing, they need to create an environment that notices and rewards it. Otherwise (and no matter how much money they invest in technology), knowledge sharing will not emerge.
Just my 2c.
This is a small data point, but I have been surprised that a blog post I wrote last November, “Open Sources of Competitive National Intelligence are Open for Business” (http://www.ddmcd.com/open_sources.html), has been consistently one of the “top ten” most frequently hit posts on my blog (http://www.ddmcd.com/my_top_ten_posts.html).
My post discussed a news report from last November on how the CIA had announced the operation of a unit to monitor all public sources of information for useful intelligence. I know from interviewing government folks that acceptance of social media such as blogs and wikis has been rapidly accepted in some quarters. In others, the ability of social media to allow communication across organizational siloes is seen as problematic.
One official I interviewed said there had been resistance to blogs and wikis from those who wanted to maintain siloes as insurance against the possibility that security might be compromised in one area. How universal that view is I donÂ’t know.
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