The Value of Enterprise 2.0

Good Morning! In my never-ending search across the web I came across this post on the eContent blog, which pointed me to Jennifer Okimoto from IBM Global Business Services presentation on Knowledge Management. These few slides are quite informative and I recommend folks to take a quick look. But one of the slides stood out to me. I was hoping to link to it here, but wasn't able to. But if you view the slideshow, check out slide #2.

What I found interesting is in the second scene, it gives the impression that the internal employee is asking for Web 2.0 tools. This got me thinking, while there is certainly an increasing population of employees who feel comfortable with these tools, see a value in them, not only in their personal life, but also in their professional life, there still is a disproportional number of internal employees who just don’t see the point.

Now I’m not saying it’s not important for corporations to invest in these technologies, oh no, the opposite. I think for many the question is how do we demonstrate the value? For many folks either they are unfamiliar with Web 2.0 tools, and at the same time, those who are familiar with these, don’t necessarily understand how to utilize them in a professional capacity. No matter what we may think, there is a leap from posting pics of the kids on your Flickr account, to documenting procedural steps in a multi-phase project that spans numerous business units.

It’s clear that the big component of an Enterprise 2.0 strategy is creating awareness and comfort with the new tools. During the session for Integrating a Portal into the Enterprise and Using Content Management, Search, and Collaboration, it’ll be great to hear the experiences of companies such as Avenue A Razorfish and Unisys for example. While corporate environments are quite unique, hearing the dos and don’ts of other companies can be a big help when developing your own strategy.