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Enterprise 2.0: Too Much for Some Companies?
People are saying that the first decade of the 2000’s was the ‘decade of Social Media’. That decade saw the rise of Social Networking and Social Tools like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and wikis galore. Businesses were clobbered by their next-gen employees demanding Social-Media-like tools in the office and simultaneously intrigued by Social-Media technology and how it could be used to build stronger relationships with customers and among employees. The result was an attempt to blend Social Media into workplace, something people started calling Enterprise 2.0.
But the inevitable backlash to Enterprise 2.0 is underway. ZDNet Blogger Dennis Howlett criticizes Enterprise 2.0 as a technology bandaid, a tool in search of a problem. He argues that the tools which are used in businesses are less important than getting the business process right. Businesses should work on their process first. Once they develop the right process, picking the right tools to implement it will come more naturally.
Howlett wrote: “Where to next? Organizations will continue to experiment with E2.0 but the success stories will likely remain thin in articulating declared benefits. Now that we’ve seen attention drawn to limitations in one of the well publicized examples perhaps we’ll see a sharper focus on organizational issues. Whether that includes a shift of emphasis towards process remains to be seen. Hopefully it will mean a more rigorous examination of the limiting factors which bedevil technology introduction and for which the answers to date have at best been glib and at worst cynical denials of reality.”
Joe McKendrick of the FastForward Blog questions whether some companies are ready for the implications of Social Media in the workplace. Social Media has the democratic premise that all views and opinions should be voiced, but many organizations aren’t ready for leveling the hierarchies that have been built up in their organizations. McKendrick wrote: “Attempting to introduce open and frank communications and interaction into a fairly rigid command-and-control corporate environment may result in dashed expectations and a frustrating, counter-productive experience.” He recommends that organizations go slow, beginning usually with pilot projects, in using the technology, to become familiar with it, and not be be overwhelmed by it.
