Sorry for the lapse in posting to the blog, the last few weeks were split between vacation and wrapping up the Specialist modules of the AIIM Enterprise 2.0 training course. As those familiar with my perspective on Enterprise 2.0 know, I believe that Enterprise 2.0, unlike Web 2.0, does not necessarily grow virally – at least not initially. The cultural aspects of Enterprise 2.0, including the need to incentivize community members, and seed and nurture the community and its content is a major focus of the training we have developed.
While on vacation, I had the luxury to do quite a bit of reading and surfing (web surfing that is – I guess that’s the geek in me). I discovered so much food for thought regarding ECM and Enterprise 2.0. (So beware there are several posts like this one forthcoming.)
I stumbled upon a blog post by Seth Godin – the e-marketing guru and author of several excellent books. While I am a fan of all of his works, I really appreciated what he had to say in this particular blog post: “But the strategy still takes forever. The strategy is the hard part, not the tactics.” The point of this post is that despite the sometimes seemingly viral nature of Web 2.0, often (not in all cases), patience (i.e. years of waiting) and strategy precede what appears to be rapid and viral adoption. The article is peppered with real world examples. I could not agree more, and believe this is even more pronounced in the enterprise setting, where the attraction of being purely social and linking to ones “4358 friends”, may not be as enticing. Moreover, as Godin points out, even in the web setting you cannot underestimate the role and need of strategy and leadership. Viral adoption can likely be the result of careful incubation of strategy and management.
On a related note, the Boston Globe ran an article in which it covered the slow uptake of blogging by Harvard University professors. (The article has an interesting twist in that Harvard is the home of Enterprise 2.0 champion Andrew McAfee.) According to the article, McAfee’s colleagues “watched from the sidelines…” as blogging took off in many other sectors. Again, it seems that culture had to catch up with technology – adoption was not immediately viral. The article also highlights another interesting aspect of blogging. Apparently, one of the attractions to blogging among the Harvard faculty is the informal nature with which they write in their blogs. Oh sure, writing in one’s blog need not be as formal as an academic journal, but that is a matter of choice. The article failed to point out that the tone of a blog need not be informal or colloquial. The tone is set by the author, not the technology. Setting the tone is something that should be carefully considered by the author (another cultural challenge in my mind), that is way to often over looked. In fact, in reading the article, I recalled an earlier post McAfee made to his blog, where he provides commentary on the need to exercise a certain degree of security and control over the tone and content of blogs, using college settings as an example. More recently he took this issue head on in a post called "Freedom is Overrated."
Oh sure among the greatest benefits of Enterprise (and web) 2.0 technologies are transparency and ease of use. But, I said it before and I will say it again (and it is in the AIIM Market IQ on Enterprise 2.0, and our training course), in a business setting this should be managed through some common sense. This includes a realization that despite transparency and ease of use, Enterprise 2.0 applications may likely benefit from some careful upfront and ongoing strategy and management.
