Gartner fuels Enterprise 2.0 too

One of the interesting things I missed out is Gartners new version of their Hype Cycles for Emerging Technologies – nice because there are some Enterprise 2.0 insights to glean from it, even when Enterprise 2.0 clearly doesn’t equal Web 2.0. As always, thoughts and/or comments are greatly appreciated.

The Social Software Hype Cycle highlights the most important technologies that support rich social interactions. Use our assessment of their business relevance and maturity to guide your investment decisions.

It’s especially nice to see that wikis are finally entering the plateau of productivity (after having traversed the phases of technology trigger, peak of inflated expectations, trough of disillusionment and the slope of enlightenment), followed closely by Idea Management:

Two related technologies and trends that will reach the plateau in two to five years are Social Networking platforms and Microblogging. Good, we need more companies evaluating what role these communication sites and models can play in collaboration environments. Besides I really like Gartners analysis that firms should consider Web 2.0 (read Enterprise 2.0) if they want to drive forward business transformation. Noted are possible advances in the generation of intellectual capital and more effective decision-making, but I would also add more effective innovation management. But still a thorough analysis of needs is a good thing to have:

“The main message of the hype cycle is that organisations need to make sure that when they adopt technologies early, they do so for the right reasons – because it is aligned with an area where it is important for them to innovate, not because everyone is doing it”

More in the 2008 Gartner Hype Cycle Special Report podcast (mp3)

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Stumbled upon … change management

Interessantes, schnell gebloggt:

Konzerne müssen im Büro sparen: In der deutschen Industrie schlummern nach wie vor große Effizienzreserven in Vertrieb und Verwaltung. Nachdem die Siemens AG vor wenigen Tagen bekanntgegeben hatte, mehr als 12 000 Stellen vor allem in nichtproduzierenden Bereichen zu streichen, kündigte gestern auch die Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG neue Sparmaßnahmen und den Abbau von 500 Stellen auch in der Verwaltung an (mp3, a podcast by Handelsblatt)

und

Mal hü, mal hott – Ein Konzern findet eine Strategie: Siemens streicht weltweit 17.000 Stellen. Obwohl der Konzern wirtschaftlich gut dasteht, obwohl die Auftragsbücher voll sind. Ziel der Operation: Umbau des Konzerns, Konzentration auf rentable Sparten. Das ist die neue Mode bei Großunternehmen: Nachdem jahrelang Diversifizierung angesagt war, also Ausweitung des Geschäfts auf viele Bereiche, ist jetzt Beschränkung auf das Kerngeschäft der Renner. Und wir fragen uns: Was ist das, der Umbau eines Konzerns? Teilabriss oder Neuaufbau oder Komplettsanierung? Und wie geht so etwas vor sich? Mal hü, mal hott, ein Konzern baut um (mp3, podcast by german radio HR2)

Die gleiche Frage wird hier in “Wieviel Wandel verträgt der Mensch im Betrieb ?” von SWR2 Geld, Markt, Meinung behandelt. Hier ist das mp3, u.a. mit Interviews mit Stefan Kühl und Gerald Lembke. Nun ja, dennoch hinterlässt mich das Ganze ein wenig unbefriedigt – die Komplexität von Wandelvorhaben wird zwar deutlich gemacht aber dennoch ein sehr positiver Schluss gezogen. Ob es wirklich so einfach ist? Einfach die Menschen mitnehmen und besser kommunizieren? Oder ist es nicht eher so wie von Michael Kanazawa in diesem Change This Manifesto beschrieben: “People Don’t Hate Change, They Hate How You’re Trying to Change Them“:

If you believe that people hate change and that it is your job to change them, they will hate it. If you believe that people thrive on change and that your job is to unleash it, you will tap into a limitless source of ingenuity, energy and drive that will allow you to consistently take your big ideas into big results.

Nach der Sommerpause geht es hier weiter, mit “ingenuity, energy and drive”

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How to Make the Web More Social

Google’s Joe Kraus (ex JotSpot) got interviewed by Wharton Business School’s Kevin Werbach on How to Make the Web More Social, here’s the mp3.

Joe Kraus, director of product management at Google, believes every killer app on the web — instant messaging, e-mail, blogging, photo-sharing — has succeeded because it helps people connect with one another. For Kraus, this means the Internet has an inherently social character, but it can be enhanced further. Wharton legal studies professor Kevin Werbach spoke with Kraus recently about the socialization of the Internet. Kraus will speak about social computing at the Supernova conference in San Francisco on June 16.

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One word as a focal point for change – Collaboration

Taking up my last post on the role of social software and collaboration technology in organizational change management (“Cultural change and developing collaboration capabilities“) I want to add Charlie Bess’ view on EDS’ Next Big Thing Blog. Here Charlie holds that collaboration is the focal point for change in 2008:

[collaboration] can be applied at many levels to the changes that are underway.

At the cultural level, we’re all familiar with web 2.0 and the collaboration across organizations it supports. Wikinomics states the view of collaboration between organizations, increases diversity of perspective enabling innovation and reaching objectives more quickly.

At the software level, the concept of SOA is based upon the collaboration between services, enabling clear separation between the interface and the underlying data, freeing up organizations to focus at a higher (more business oriented) level.

[…] Companies need to be more agile, moving from viewing change as a periodic disruption of the status quo to accepting continuous change as the norm. Information technology (IT) has an important role to play, since it enables agility through collaboration. IT needs to collaborate with the rest of the enterprise in meeting the business objectives, probably until it fades into the business itself.

It’s timely also that Josh Bernoff, co-author of Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies (blog here) was recently invited to the Harvard Business Review IdeaCast. Topic of the talk is “Be a Social Technology Provocateur”. Get the mp3 here, listen to it.

Makes me wonder – is there a place for a “consultant provocateur” to get enterprise social software going? Provocation is such a bad and naughty word. Well, sometimes it’s a necessary part of the consulting task/project at hand, smartly disguised as innovation consulting. But this works best when combined with the credibility and professional ethics that clients always need. Being pushy is a dumb idea. Bringing an outside-in perspective is a good start, and if let’s add smart questions, communication, promotion, explanations of best practices. So we can make friends and win inner-organizational allies etc. – even when we’re shaking the boat?

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Creating Wiki Cultures …

… that’s the title of a podcast at the IT Conversations network, an interview with Ward Cunningham (mp3, haven’t listened to it yet, this is a notice, not a recommendation). Here’s the abstract:

[…] Jon Udell speaks with wiki inventor Ward Cunningham, who discusses the two most recent phases of his career. At the Eclipse Foundation in 2006, he pioneered a transformative new approach to making software-supported business processes transparently understandable both to developers and to users. Now, as CTO of aboutus.org, he’s helping to create a new wiki culture for companies and organizations to explain themselves to the world.

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