Reality of implementing web 2.0 in enterprises
Dinesh Tantri has an interesting thought about Enterprise 2.0 Tools Don't Address The Politics Of KM.
I was reviewing an enterprise wiki implementation recently. This is a group that had impact across the organization on multiple divisions. The wiki was great. The customizations were great. But the people aspect had the 1.0 hangover. Only members of this group had access to the wiki while the implications of the knowledge that gets created was enterprise wide. [snip]
Enterprises are made of people who are used to the command-and-control days of knowledge management as document management: "corporate KM." I appreciate Tantri's comments.
In a related situation, a former student contacted me about a client who is implementing "user participation" on their new web site and did I have any thoughts on how they might bring more web 2.0 ideas into the mix. One could imagine doing a variety of things, but on looking at their web site, I couldn't see how they were designing for real user participation.
It's not easy for people to make that jump.
4 Comment(s)
I wonder if we are going to see adoption driven on two fronts. One front is where organisations with an appetite for change and participation embark on an initiative to achieve better client service/project execution/development of IP/efficient problem solving or whatever the ambition is. This front will be characterised by the "1.0 hangover" mentality (I like that term) but we should remember that all change takes time (and sometimes fails).
The other front is where the new generation of tools is adopted because of an external pressure to do so. Customers and clients wanting, requesting and demanding participation in processes at a level that email cannot provide. Then it becomes a competitive differentiator and may leap up the corporate agenda as a result.
It is about change management and how are people willing to accept change. In contemporary organizations, this is seldom seen due to you talented professionals who are familiar technologies and tools. Line managers have to build sustaining change management strategies. As Lars put it, I don't think it customer should drive the change within organizations, if that is the case, the firm really needs to have another look at themselves. People have to realize the strength of using web 2.0 tools and identify what all it has the power to change.
said:
Thanks, Kaizer-
Change management is always an entertaining topic which I blog on from time to time. It seems variably easy and hard, depending on all sorts of factors. The biggest factor, I think, is that managers don't make sense of the change for people. How will this grow the business? How will it remove/reduce the things we complain about the most? How will it help us get things done?
Where the change comes from is almost not important. If customers want it on the outside face of the company, smart managers might consider needing it on the inside too - they might think about asking it from their suppliers. Whatever "it" might be.
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I reckon this is why it takes time. People have to see repeated examples of where a change in behaviour benefits more than doing things the old way.