Mike Stopforth

I’m not sure where I first heard the phrase Enterprise 2.0. It struck me immediately as a great way to express what I’ve been trying to say to South African corporations for the last year: Web 2.0 is having, and is increasingly going to have, and impact on your people, and therefore on your bottom line (people being customers and employees).

I’m convinced Web 2.0 is about much more than software, tools, apps, Ajax, beta versions, etc. I think Web 2.0 has an enormously underestimated and undervalued cultural or tacit (or philosophical) component to it – possibly even more important than the software. del.icio.us is nothing without its user community actively engaging it. O’Reilly and gang touched on this in their now infamous Web 2.0 meme map when saying that Web 2.0 is ’software that gets better the more people use it’ – implying that Web 2.0 software adapts to the user community, not vice versa. They went on to call Web 2.0 ‘an attitude, not a technology’, and I think that is what I’m getting at.

I’m not sure which came first – whether Web 2.0 technologies emerged and inspired (or enabled) a new way of connecting, sharing and collaborating, or if a community of users shifted its thinking and behaviour and what has become affectionately known as Web 2.0 applications was a technlogical by-product. This will be an important relationship to understand or unpack as Web 2.0 creeps into companies.

Which brings me back to Enterprise 2.0. For me, the phrase embodied not just the implementation or integration of Web 2.0-type technology into more ‘traditional’ corporate communications processes, content management systems or knowledge management architectures, but the paradigm shift that would have to happen in the minds and actions of stakeholders in order for it to WORK. This once again brings us back to the chicken-and-eggy technology vs. culture, discussion (which I’d appreciate your input on).

Enterprise 2.0, for me, is about carefully examining the trends and tools emerging out of Web 2.0 and extracting REAL value for business, value that might not even come in the form of software or tools. Intangibles. But that is just my theory, and I’m building it at the moment.

I came across Andrew McAfee’s blog in the course of my research – he seems to be the originator of the term – and decided to consolidate his writing with that of Rod Boothby, Dion Hinchcliffe (who runs a consultancy around Enterprise 2.0), Ross Mayfield and others (including yours truly) in a Wikipedia entry.

The Wikipedia entry got ‘nuked‘ because according to someone, it was not yet good enough share online space with such highly educational and classy entries as this and this. Dennis and Thomas were particularly unimpressed (as was I, but I’m less vocal because I’m young and scared of large, important Wikipedians).

It’s likely we’ll start up a new Wikipedia entry (because I think it is important), but this is a space to watch. I’ll be writing more about my ideas around Enterprise 2.0 and what it means, so please interact, criticise and collaborate.

Regardless of what it’s called, this enterprise thingy has something to it. And I for one am excited about it.

Update: Woodrow graces us with a rant of the highest order.

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