Collaborage: Enterprise 2.0 Implementation Overview

Like the vision of that perfect mate, we all have this ideal vision of Enterprise 2.0. We take the best perceptions of success and imagine our organization fitting into that mold exactly. We see some 2.0 CEO flying in and laying the foundation of Enterprise 2.0 at our feet. Information Technology delivers the perfect collection of Web 2.0 tools and places them at our finger tips where business value has been waiting for years to emerge. It reminds me of the Christmas Story, where the little boy imagines himself as this great sharp shooter that saves the town from the evil bandits. When in reality, Enterprise 2.0 is more like the "Leg Lamp"; messy, crazy, unpredictable, and risky to say the least.

For the vast majority of implementations, the Enterprise 2.0 effort will begin with a spark or an idea where someone takes a risk. Maybe the infrastructure is funded but someone has to step up and take that first step. After that person gets shot in the back, reprimanded, or fired then another person has to take the reins. I admire the work of Luis Suarez and Scott Gavin, for they are some of the few that survived and became industry leading voices. But the death trail of failed voices cannot be overlooked. Despite this view of organizations just waiting for Enterprise 2.0, most have done business profitably for years without them. How much courage does it take for someone to start an internal blog when their management see little or no value? Would you ask 5 levels above you permission to post a few ideas or your own? Do you have the onions to step out into a field of conversation that could determine your next career step; up or down?

It easy for us on the outside to say just do it! Take a risk and you will be rewarded but those successes are few are far between. The point of this post is to recognize those that try and take that giant leap. They are willing to gamble their career on a communication medium and the ideals of those of us on the outside. Much in the same way, people with MBA's think they know how to run a company. We assume that all Enterprise 2.0 implementations are simply a case study. Add a few best practices and what emerges is Collaboration success. This is clearly a pipe dream and fails to recognize the challenges, risks, and hurdles that must be overcome by those within the company walls. Take the time to thank you few that take the risks and contribute to your Enterprise 2.0 effort. You can take all of the value from the vendor and consultants and it won't even come close to value contributed by those early adopters.

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Hi Todd! Thanks a bunch for such a though-provoking blog post! As I was reading through it I just couldn't help feeling very identified with it (Thanks for the mention, too!). Plenty of times I have felt like I was building a whole bunch of risks upon myself by diving into social software and becoming such a big advocate for it. Yet, I knew it was the right thing (I still think it is!), so I kept pushing further even now to the point of "A World Without Email" and so far I can see how plenty of people may not feel comfortable with the whole thing, but time and time again I have been able to prove you can still be incredibly productive using these tools, if you put them to good use, that is, instead of goofeying around, vs. other traditional "collaborative" tools suite.

Interesting thing, and that's something that I have always believed very dearly, the moment someone puts a stop to my diving into social software tools & still be productive, that'd be the time where I would be moving on. Life is just too short to have to worry about how you are going to remain productive, get the job done and have that sense of achievement on having carried out something successfully as a collaborative effort with your networks if your employer doesn't understand how it would overall benefit the entire business.

As time goes further, I am not sure that businesses would have much of a choice, specially if they would want to retain all of that talent of those folks who see the benefits of working together collaboratively in an open environment. I suspect working in silos has got its days numbered... For everyone? Probably not yet, but getting there... Slowly, but steadily ;-)

Hi Todd, Just found your blog and immediately what you say about the inherent risk in introducing web/enterprise 2.0 resonates with me. The potential is huge, especially in performance improvement and even to the extent of being able to use them to manage change, even cultural change. For the same reasons as the internet itself contains risk, difficulty of controlling and even influencing the network of conversations through which individuals try to adjust and micromanage their relations with colleagues, even with the tools and equipment they might use, is a challenge. The last of 6 articles around the need to understand how the benefits of web/enterprise 2.0 services like Groupsite, Mzinga, sossoon, and so on, is just about to be published at http://www.knowledgeboard.com. This last one addresses the need to understand, and to cope with, the additional conversations that the new technology has the potential of unleashing into what are pretty undemocratic scenarios—our workplaces

March 31, 2009

Recognize the Risk of Enterprise 2.0

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