Enterprise 2.0
There has been a lot of talk lately about enterprise 2.0 in our company. It’s supposed to be the enterprise version of web 2.0, so: online collaboration, distributed content generation, distributed responsibilities, … This comes down to: wiki, blogging, but also a change in the company organisation.
I think that real enterprise 2.0 doesn’t have anything to do with technology, since all the technology was already there and it was already used. Enterprise 2.0 is about a change in mindset. Knowledge sharing has always been one of the major issues in enterprises. Componence (the company I work for) is not an enterprise, but we do work on 7 locations over the whole world. This means that our problem with knowledge sharing is in a way representative for larger companies.
Contact between employees is mostly through Skype. I’ve never been in a company where they are so happy when you have 15 skype chats open; this means you’re working hard. Chats, conference calls, video conferencing, mail, it all works, but the knowledge that is exchanged doesn’t stick. It’s lost after the conversation is over. Two or three people have learned something and then we go into the regular creating of presentations, text documents, mindmaps, etc.
But real knowledge should be shared with other people, discussed, enriched and USED! Wiki and blog give the company a way to do that. But then the employees still have to understand what they are doing. Don’t blog because your boss tells you to, don’t post something on wiki because it’s good for your bonus. It’s change in working: the knowledge in your head is worth nothing until you do something with it! Share the knowledge, actively join the discussion with other people in your company (our outside).
Me personally, I don’t have enough time to do all that shit… Ehm… Ah….
It’s going to be a long way before this Enterprise 2.0 thing will really work.
Martin,
I guess you’re right, Enterprise 2.0 not only needs the people who are used to blogs, social networks etc. It also needs a new understanding by professionals how online expressions and actions will be used to judge someone.
Because we’re humans we’re slowly doing it for ourselves, but look at digital camera’s, hotels, companies, employers … All is rated, commented and judged, so when will humans be judged so extensively? That is the time where Enterprise 2.0 will really start to work, if people understand that also their quality and experience is transparent.