Do you need Web 2.0?
Dr. Steve Hodgkinson
08/10/2007

Web 2.0 platforms like Facebook and YouTube are taking the internet by storm. New software tools, social behaviours, approaches to content creation and business models are changing the way we think about information, collaboration and intellectual property. Use of web 2.0 platforms for the serious business of work is referred to as enterprise 2.0.

The primary purpose of enterprise 2.0 platforms is to lubricate the social networking effect of collaboration to stimulate knowledge sharing, idea exploitation and innovation. This begs the question, ‘to what extent does an enterprise need, or desire, this lubrication?’.

Some commentators are taking a 'one size fits all' approach to discussing enterprise 2.0, with viewpoints tending to swing between wild enthusiasms on the one hand and worrying about new dangers on the other.

Enthusiasts see an inevitable flow of web 2.0 style wikis, blogs, profiles, tagging and social networking behaviours from the consumer realm into the enterprise. Enterprise 2.0 will be introduced into the enterprise by net-generation employees - whether the CIO agrees or not - and will act as a catalyst for increased information sharing, collaboration and innovation.

New dangers, however, include network penetration; authentication of the identity of contributors; assuring data ownership; accidental disclosure of sensitive data; inadvertent publication of unauthorised corporate positions; system proliferation and integration headaches; problems archiving and versioning information; increased risk of identity theft; and also general time wasting by employees engaging in non-work related social networking.

Not all organisations are the same in terms of their exposure to either the opportunities or the dangers of enterprise 2.0. For some, enterprise 2.0 platforms are a good fit - and there is active experimentation to boost collaboration and innovation. For others, however, they present unjustified risks and are unlikely to be adopted until tested and proven by others.

We can't really have a proper conversation about enterprise 2.0 until we start to frame it within a more structured understanding of the social character of individual organisations, and the functions they perform.

Ovum has developed a framework to assess the receptivity of organisations to enterprise 2.0 platforms. Factors include: pressure to develop new products and services; degree of customer/stakeholder intimacy; inter-relatedness with other organisations; reliance on creative processes to solve novel problems; the culture of abundance of opportunities for staff; brand and reputation flexibility; the degree of data anonymity and the approach to intellectual property openness.

These factors help us to understand the 'open or 'closed' nature of an organisation's social character. Some organisations are 'anti-social' in terms of the use of enterprise 2.0 platforms and should not be early adopters. These organisations have legitimate needs to restrict information flows to protect sensitive data, business processes and intellectual property and to manage operational risks. Organisations with a closed social character are more into tuning for efficiency and predictability than lubricating for innovation.

Others are highly social, with a culture of open dialogue and sharing of information, and can benefit from early adoption to drive innovation. Organisations with an open social character are natural candidates to take advantage of the benefits of the new enterprise 2.0 platforms. They are receptive to the new skills and behaviours required and relatively resilient to the new risks and dangers.

Organisations need to understand their social character and tune their use of enterprise 2.0 platforms accordingly.

- Dr. Steve Hodgkinson is Ovum's IT Research Director in Australia/NZ.

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