Most companies who try to do Enterprise 2.0 will fail

And it will be for these reasons in no particular order:

1. They think it is about technology.

2. They aren't prepared to deal with the friction that allowing their staff to connect generates.

3. They will assimilate it into business as usual.

4. They will try to do it in a way that "maximizes business effectiveness" without realizing that it calls for a radical shift in what is seen as effective.

5. They will grind down their early adopters until they give up.

6. They will get fleeced by the IT industry for over engineered, under delivering solutions, think that Enterprise 2.0 failed to live up to its promise and move on to the next fad.

7. Lack of patience

8. It is not companies who do Enterprise 2.0 it is individuals.

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Comments

[cellobella]

That's a really interesting observation and one I think companies ought to remember.

[ourman]

The problem is that they see technoligy in istelf as a magic wand. It remains more about application than applications.

Whatever your systems, you still have to put the effort in.

[Ian]

The biggest point to me, given my lengthy experience of this inside a big corporation is that middle managers don't like to change process, just create it and move on.

People try to change them but your point 5 is totally valid, they get ground down to the point of giving up

[Ralph Poole]

So what do you suggest?
Do you think it is valuable to incorporate social networking tools and collaborative tools in business? Should the enterprise make the platform available or should we just use the tools available to us on the intranet?

I agree, if there are costs involved, the questions that you mention will drag the conversation with management towards cost effectiveness and quantifying the business value of shared content development. This will take all the energy out of an implementation.

There are times, however, when the business problem invites web 2.0 solutions. For example, when the company is learning to do something new, like scaling up for a product launch, a wiki is a great solution that encourages collaboration and allows people to interact and change content as they learn. It takes some learning to get people to work this way, but my experience is that people find it empowering.

So without a specific business problem to solve, pushing E 2.0 solutions will fail. With a business problem that you can solve via a clever application of new technology, then you may have a chance for adoption.

[John Connell]

Euan - if there's a similarity (as i am sure there is) between Enterprise 2.0 and Learning 2.0, then for me it is #5 that hits hardest in education. Too many see technology as a way of doing what we have always done only better, more efficiently or more effectively. The possibility that, maybe, just maybe, we actually need to do different things altogether is missed completely. The result is very similar to #6.

By the way - is 'friction' the right word in #2? I know what you mean, I think, but i just wonder if the somewhat negative connotations of friction capture all that can flow from allowing individuals to connect.

[Euan Semple]

Hi Ralph

I agree completely with your points and in fact make my living by helping organisations to get their heads round this stuff. My post was a reflection of having dealt with dozens of organisations and seeing the morphing of a good idea into "Enterprise 2.0".

[Euan Semple]

John I should probably have used organisations instead of companies in the title!

My use of "friction" was considered. Creative friction is a recognized stimulus for change and I wanted to reflect the discomfort that is being shied away from in so many cases.

[Rob Paterson]

So true Euan - the change in culture is soooo hard to pull off.

[Bruno]

Very insightful points Euan. It strikes me that all reasons mentionned somehow stem from a legacy of the "command and control" paradigm, where most organizations are still seen (consciously or unconsciously) as machines...

[Salv Reina]

Good observations. I particularly like number 4. It's important to recognise that new ways of working can arise from these tools.

Point 8: yep, that's exactly it; we need the enterprise to remember that and facilitate accordingly.

[Steve Dale]

Euan,

pretty much spot on and reinforces my own experience in dealing with central gov. I've referenced from my own blog (http://steve-dale.net) and added a couple of more points. One is the misconception that if something costs very little it has no value. Gov projects usually start at £1m and go up from there, so anyone offering a solution that starts at £5k doesn't even get through the door!

The other barrier to success is the apparent need to harmonise and standardise, delivering one-size-fits-all solutions, whereas Web 2.0 offers inherent flexibility that can be tailored to user's needs. Proprietary solutions that lock users into one way of working are doomed to fail.

[Brad]

Euan,

Pretty much what you have listed are really battles between flexibility and control within organisations.

Flexible organisations rely on, and trust, individuals to make good judgements, use their networks and connections, and get the job done. Essentially, it's what the organisation pays for when hiring staff.

Control organisations think that it's the top of the hierarchy that is the font of all wisdom and the workers are there to do what they are told by those above them. Ironically, this is the opposite of what most organisations actually look for when recruiting a new hire. How many job ads have you seen where they ask for no individual thinking, no initiative, and absolute subservience to higher management?

Enterprise 2.0 is likely to work or fail based on these two types of organisations.

[Euan Semple]

Brad, as is hinted at in your penultimate paragraph, most companies are either a mix of both types or deeply confused as to which they are!

[Marcel de Ruiter]

Euan, after being in the unofficial job of Enterprise 2.0 evangelist for 3 years I really start to feel point 5 on your list.

There are times that I think "not here, not now, not ever"...

[Euan Semple]

Hang in there!

[Dennis Howlett]

Perfect timing Euan - I'll pinch this for my Oracle presentation later today. Thanks.

[Euan Semple]

Hope it helps!

[Gregory Y]

Very same list (well almost very same) can be quoted about CRM, SOA, or many other IT lead attempts to instigate the change. The cost incurred in process is horrendous compared to so few successes achieved, but it is still worth trying IMHO.

[Jason Edwards]

Euan, finally got round to organising my thoughts:

"4. They will try to do it in a way that "maximizes business effectiveness" without realizing that it calls for a radical shift in what is seen as effective."

My question on "faith or evidence based" relates to are we starting to see, or do we believe it will come to pass, that the impact is transformative rather than simply efficiency improving.

My feeling from the conference last Thursday was that the although case studies are starting to emerge we're are the start of understanding what the impact can be.

[Euan Semple]

Oh I certainly believe that we will see some real changes in how we understand organisations and run them over the next few years. It will take longer than some people believe but from what I saw in my seven years doing this at the BBC what we perceive as efficient will change dramatically.

[Craig Thomler]

It is true that most organisations fail when they first try to engage in these type of new media interactions.

However failure is neither wrong nor bad, it's part of growth and change.

Sometimes only by failing can an organisation (or individual) learn what it needs to do to succeed.

Google and Facebook are not 'right' - they also stumble, sometimes spectacularly.

Successful organisations do not measure themselves by their first-time successes, they measure by their long-term growth.

[Euan Semple]

I would agree completely Craig. One of the challenges of blogging is that it is easy to assume that readers read all your blog posts and understand were you are coming from when you post!

I make my living helping companies embrace 2.0 whatever and believe that it is going to happen more places than not. Being prepared to make mistakes and fail is also a large part of the culture that goes along with this stuff so I wasn't being critical - just realistic!

[Stephen Danelutti]

Not sure you are aware of the Q&A going on over at LinkedIn in part prompted by your post. The question being asked is: What is missing from Enterprise 2.0?

My answer in case you are interested is:

Considering that one accepts Enterprise 2.0 has value and will impact fundamentally on the way businesses operate in future and so is necessary to adopt in some way, or at the very least start to consider how it could or should be adopted, then I think management of change has to be a starting point. If you accept this, then I think one important factor is building a company wide vision and creating a sense of urgency, from the top down as well as from the bottom up. This for me is most often missing in the efforts I've been involved in.

Additional factors that influence this are down to how an organisation collectively sees things, in other words its culture. Organisations that get it (Enterprise 2.0) and are predisposed to change and innovation as a basis for competitive advantage will start doing things. Inevitably there will be failures as noted by Euan but ultimately there will be action.

Having reached this point, I don't think anything will be missing because the organisation will figure it all out for itself over time and its solution will be different to anyone else's.

[Euan W Semple]

Thanks for the pointer and I agree with you that most of this is about culture. Most of my work with clients is around what it means to them to do this stuff and what the consequences will be. You are also right that it differs a lot from company to company though in essence it is simple and all about connections.

[Sangeeta Patni]

I think it is largely about people, and how they view the benefits to be from enterprise 2.0 type colloboration efforts.

If companies have individual-focussed reward systems (formal/informal), it is unlikely that people will flock to colloborative systems - whether it is enterprise 2.0 or the previous knowledge mgmt systems.

Once companies "really" figure out how to reward individual for the collaborative work, knowledge, processes, what-have-you, things should take off!

-Sangeeta