I have just watched a youtube video of W. Edwards Demming discussing how 'competition' is a source of weakness in comparison to 'co-operation' and I think that this parallels the reason for the issue you are asking about.

Somehow, in the West, we have developed unquestioning acceptance of the idea that competition improves the product / business / service etc. But a flaw I see in that argument is that if you are competing, you are necessarily on your own. This means that if several organisations are working on essentially the same idea, then there is duplication of effort. That is a waste of resources and in addition, working in isolation removes the chance of brainstorming for better ways and concepts.

Returning to 'why intranet offers little opportunity for idea exchange' perhaps the cause is (latent) competitiveness of the parties involved.

I have just watched a youtube video of W. Edwards Demming discussing how 'competition' is a source of weakness in comparison to 'co-operation' and I think that this parallels the reason for the issue you are asking about.

Somehow, in the West, we have developed unquestioning acceptance of the idea that competition improves the product / business / service etc. But a flaw I see in that argument is that if you are competing, you are necessarily on your own. This means that if several organisations are working on essentially the same idea, then there is duplication of effort. That is a waste of resources and in addition, working in isolation removes the chance of brainstorming for better ways and concepts.

Returning to 'why intranet offers little opportunity for idea exchange' perhaps the cause is (latent) competitiveness of the parties involved.

I have several Enterprise 2.0 talks coming up at Australian conferences and, with your okay, would love to use these descriptions in my talks.

What If
1) All my in and out emails can be seen by my manager, my managerÂ’s manager until the Chairman ?

2) Every email that I send and receive goes through a ticketing system i.e., if it is a new email – subject will be prefixed with a ticket number and/or the details added to a company-wide ticketing system.

At any time.. I should be able to
1) close the tickets
2) mark the ticket as public which should send email to all involved to agree to this status !
3) rank open tickets and even closed -> to let my colleagues know of my top pains and tips

Also, where people feel they are sharing ideas, information and knowledge – whether during meetings, via email, messaging or otherwise – the lack of a ‘platform’ on which to do all of this may appear as more of a ‘nice to have’ than a constraint. In addition, many are reluctant to change their familiar (inefficient) living-out-of-the-inbox approach to work life, and struggle to conceptualise how social tools can help relevant information bubble to the surface, and almost find them! So, whilst some may recognise problems with information (and expertise) currency and findability, there is nevertheless a gap between that recognition and ideas as to how technology can best be used to remove the constraints you mentioned, help people work better and unlearn bad habits (in terms of their existing practices of information sharing).

I agree that creating an emergent, social, networked, open information environment is an imperative in today’s workplace. But, the creation of such an environment and the implementation of any tools in support thereof needs to be done in conjunction with careful user-centric analysis, focusing on integrating the tools into and supporting people’s daily work. Whilst each of the management behaviours you mentioned are useful, I don’t think it’s enough, or in some cases appropriate, to simply ‘get out of the way’. Considerable effort is often required but not invested in analysis, and ensuring the tools are well targeted and positioned in the organisation, to encourage people to capitalise on the opportunities available, and sometimes, show them how to do it.

I think you’re right as far as you go. And, I basically agree with your suggestions. However, they do have a bit of a utopian whiff.

The Web/Enterprise 2.0 hype reminds me a bit of the “information for free” buzz that surrounded books like Kauffman’s “Origins of Order” in the mid-90′s. It’s a nice dream, but I think less likely than we might wish.

Enterprises have goals that require individuals to act in a coherent fashion. To achieve those goals, they must Execute certain activities in a reliable fashion (e.g., core processes). At the same time, they need to Explore new opportunities that emerge from a shifting technological, memetic, economic, etc. landscape. Exploration work incrementally improves Execution capabilities and potentially modifies the organizations goals by uncovering disruptive opportunities.

Web/Enterprise 2.0 holds the promise of a quantum leap forward in an organization’s capability to Explore/Innovate. The key is to integrate Exploration with Execution in a way that increases agility & adaptability without sacrificing the coherence required to maintain the organization’s health (e.g., profitability). As others have mentioned, the primary challenge is probably at the DNA level of the organization (identity, values, narrative fragments, mental models, etc.) I suspect that much of the DNA-level change will be largely an emergent phenomena, and Web/Enterprise 2.0 has a key role to play in catalyzing that change.

Note: Others (e.g., Tushman, Christensen, Hagel & Seely Brown) have drawn contrasts similar to what I’ve characterized as Execution-Exploration. After stumbling across the basic contrast about 1.5 years ago while analyzing technological change vs. organization change I found these writers (among others) had already discussed it. The fact that this contrast continues to appear in various flavors is perhaps one indicator that it is important.

Decisions need to appear to be based on unbiased information and rational analysis. However, many managers make decisions, then look for information and analysis to support the decision. But, if the information and analysis is coming from the crowd, and is difficult to influence, then the post decision analysis exercise is far more difficult. Therefore, the decisions need to be based on the information, and cannot be made prior to analysis.

In this way decision rights are taken away from management – or more precisely – the rights to make a decision without good information is curtailed because of the wealth of good information available.