Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0 visualizations

Over the last months I noticed a couple of cute visualization takes on the Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 space. Now, as I’m putting together the materials for a presentation I am holding next week I thought I’d share some of them …

Here we go, first up there’s this Web 2.0 in a Chart by the Sunlight Foundation, connecting a lot of trends related with web 2.0 (real big pdf, hence there’s no useful thumbnail).

Then, there’s FirstPartner’s take on the Enterprise 2.0 market. I appreciate how it tries to integrate and employ value-chain thinking, but I am skeptical if it’s really useful. Anyway, it’s a cute effort, found via SocialComputing Magazine:

Welcome to the FirstPartner Enterprise 2.0 Market Map. Enterprise 2.0 is a term which many struggle to define and understand. We have therefore developed this market map to articulate the different attributes of this emerging sector.

and

[This shows] the flow from the end-customer through the complete value-chain – covering blogs, wikis, collaboration tools, social networking and bookmarking through to RSS readers and Open APIs/Mashups.

FirstPartner Enterprise 2.0 Market Map

An Enterprise 2.0-sided take on visualization comes by Stephen Danelutti, who proposed an Enterprise 2.0 meme map (building upon the well known O’Reilly web 2.0 meme map).

enterprise20mememap_klein.JPG

This I must say is my last favourite, as it mingles and mixes terms and concepts and lacks clear structure (but that is true for the O’Reilly meme map and others as well).

And finally, my favourite, is by Ross Dawson of the Future Exploration Network who proposed a Web 2.0 framework, that nicely captures what Web 2.0 is all about and collects the variety of players in the Web 2.0 ecosystem:

web 2.0 framework

This framework provides a concise view of the nature of Web 2.0. While one can debate whether all important issues are collected, this visual approach lends itself to kicking off discussions (where one can elaborate further on). It provides a nice starting and reference point, and this is essential: When advising on the ideas and concepts of Enterprise 2.0 in the corporate world, I’m experiencing that it’s best to explain both instruments (methods and tools, i.e. the “how”) and goals and visions (paradigms and principles, the “why”) intertwined …

Social Computing Upends Past Knowledge Management Archetypes

… or so Forrester Research holds in this report:

When knowledge management (KM) practices, tools, and architectures burst onto the scene in the mid-1990s, they looked a lot like the old economy businesses that built them, hierarchical and workflow-driven. Now, Social Computing tools are flattening those architectures and extending the reach of KM well beyond the walls of the conventional enterprise to touch customers and business partners. Information and KM professionals are becoming knowledge facilitators, and they must get smart fast to capitalize on this trend. Although disruptive, Social Computing will transform KM, shifting the emphasis from repositories, which are hard to build and maintain, to more intuitive, tacit knowledge sharing. Social Computing is becoming the new KM, moving it from an often too academic exercise into the real world of people sharing knowledge and expertise with each other naturally, without even thinking about it.

Overall I am glad that Forrester Research is pushing this specific application of social software, as this is good news for social software and knowledge management consultants like frogpond.

But I would elaborate on their argument, basically because when many past knowledge-management projects and initiatives did not work out as planned, they did so rarely because methods or tools lacked.

For social software to turn out successful, it can’t be sufficient to ponder, propose and promote (new) methods and tools.

What is also needed is appropriate groundwork and background, i.e. paradigms and principles that guide the selection and usage of methods and tools, and insight into the nature of complex organizational systems. Emergence, connectivity and adaptivity are traits of organizational systems that are supported and leveraged by social software – good for organizational knowledge management but not restricted to it.

If you’re eager to know more and are looking for social software support and consulting assistance, contact me.

IDC on Enterprise 2.0

Bill Ives points to two IDC papers on Enterprise 2.0. They’re funded by Serendipity, a software company, but anyway, it’s interesting stuff, if only because IDC papers get wide circulation and have credibility.

One is called “Getting Results by Empowering the Information Worker: What Web 2.0 Offers Beyond Blogs and Wikis” and is basically a brief and nicely laid out executive summary … you’ve got to register, but the papers are free.

Here’s the introduction for a start:

Like a symphony conductor presiding over an orchestra, enterprise workers complete their daily tasks by processing many pieces of diverse information, and then combining them in a meaningful way. This “orchestration of data” is becoming increasingly difficult, as organizations store more and more data (for performance analysis, compliance, and so on). Furthermore, each type of data is stored, managed, and viewed through a different application, each with its own login, password, and user interface. Consequently, employees spend more time searching, accessing, retrieving, and then using the information to do their jobs. New applications purport to streamline this process, but are usually deployed in business silos, with little or no coordination between business teams. Workers must still access multiple applications to complete a task. The burden on the enterprise information worker intensifies while productivity suffers.

Furthermore, information workers also rely on information stored outside the enterprise network. As business processes become more dependent on real-time feedback, the amalgamation of enterprise business data with publicly available data, in a meaningful and contextual manner, is becoming m ore im portant… and difficult.

Useless Information

An Accenture survey has interesting key findings:

Managers spend up to two hours a day searching for information, and more than 50 percent of the information they obtain has no value to them. In addition, only half of all managers believe their companies do a good job in governing information distribution or have established adequate processes to determine what data each part of an organization needs.

Collaboration Trends

This is interesting, pointing out a study and benchmark on how enterprises are supporting their virtual workforce (e.g. by shared workspaces for collaboration (real-time- and non-real time applications), some early results:

– 90% of enterprises consider themselves “virtual”, that is, they operate organizations in which team members work in separate geographic locations.
– Revenue growth and boosting employee productivity were the biggest drivers for collaboration projects.
– Demand for collaboration applications is primarily end-user driven.
– Enterprises are moving toward unifying their planning for collaboration and convergence.

and

The bottom line for enterprises and those wishing to sell into the enterprise market is that enterprises seem to understand the opportunity that collaborative applications present to improve their operations, and the demand is pull-based rather than push-based.