Here is a follow on to my post, Enterprise 2.0 is not Web 2.0 nor is it an Oxymoron. Andrew McAfee who started this term, recently held an online poll to ask his “MBA students their opinions on the potential benefits of Enterprise 2.0 as well as the actual benefits most companies will be able to achieve.” See - Homework the Teacher Learns From.
One response started off this way, “"I have been an eye witness of the power of enterprise 2.0 (although I didn’t know that is what it was called at the time) technology in promoting collaboration and connectedness across disparate individuals and groups within organizations.
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This brought back memories as I was an eye witness in the early 90s of the power of knowledge management (although I didn’t know that is what it was called at the time) “in promoting collaboration and connectedness across disparate individuals and groups within organizations.” I was very excited and it caused me to switch my focus from learning to what came to be called knowledge management but, in the end the tools and times where not really ready for it to be adopted on a massive basis, yet it still survives.
In the example that Andrew provided, a low-level marketing manager located in a satellite office used a comment on the CEO’s blog to call into question some of the company’s key practices and metrics. The manager produced a lot of data to support his position. It created a lot of buzz in the company. The CEO took the manager’s views seriously and formed a task force to study the issue. Andrew’s student talked about how that without the blog, this issue would not have reached the attention of those who needed to understand it.
Back in the early 90s at the company I referred to above, the CEO was introducing a concept of shared learning to his division heads. One of the division leaders questioned why one division would want to share its insights with another division dealing with different issues. The CEO looked at that division leader and said it is this type of thinking that has gotten them in such trouble. (They were losing a lot of money because of institutional silos.) The company adopted the shared learning concept through some of the more primitive tools of the day. It was one of several reasons that they turned around and became profitable. It was this promise that first got me excited about blogs, web 2.0 , and now enterprise 2.0. Thanks to Andrew’s student for another example.
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