As I said, I barely got this buzz word “Web 2.0” in place when off pops the word “Enterprise 2.0” from my VPs mouth. So, I started my research on the word to find what it was about.
Introduction: The way we work is changing rapidly, offering an enormous competitive advantage to those who embrace the new tools that enable contextual, agile and simplified information exchange and collaboration to distributed workforces and networks of partners and customers. The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration, Collaborative Technologies, Enterprise Social Software – If you have heard of any of these terms, they all mean Enterprise 2.0
Enterprise 2.0: It is the term for the technologies and business practices that liberate the workforce from the constraints of legacy communication and productivity tools like email. It provides business managers with access to the right information at the right time through a web of inter-connected applications, services and devices. Enterprise 2.0 makes accessible the collective intelligence of many, translating to a huge competitive advantage in the form of increased innovation, productivity and agility.
Enterprise Web 2.0: It is a micro-publication about the management, leadership and people issues raised by the next-generation of web technologies. It is aimed more at technology-savvy business managers than professional technologists, although geeks are more than welcome.
In simple words, Enterprise 2.0 has a simple definition. It is defined as the application of Web 2.0 technologies to the enterprise. But there are almost as many different meanings for "Web 2.0" as there are mashups, making "Enterprise 2.0" an equally nebulous concept. One latest and most talked about area in Web 2.0 is RIAs (Rich Internet Applications). RIAs and other new Web 2.0 communications technologies are hot, but applying them to the enterprise can be tricky. Six most active areas in RIAs - RSS Enablement, online office suites, mashup appliances, social bookmarking, wikis and all-in-one Web 2.0 appliances. We will discuss more in detail in one of my coming posts. For now, let us not dwell deep into it.
Enterprise 1.0 Vs Enterprise 2.0
| Enterprise 1.0 | Enterprise 2.0 |
| Hierarchy | Flat Organization |
| Friction | Ease of Organization Flow |
| Bureaucracy | Agility |
| Inflexibility | Flexibility |
| IT-driven technology/ Lack of user control | User-driven techology |
| Top down | Bottom up |
| Centralized | Distributed |
| Teams are in one building/ one time zone | Teams are global |
| Silos and boundaries | Fuzzy boundaries, open borders |
| Need to know | Transparency |
| Information systems are structured and dictated | Information systems are emergent |
| Taxonomies | Folksonomies |
| Overly complex | Simple |
| Closed/ proprietary standards | Open |
| Scheduled | On Demand |
| Long time-to-market cycles | Short time-to-market cycles |
Enterprise 2.0 Conference takes a strategic perspective, emphasizing the bigger picture implications of the technology and the exploration of what is at stake for organizations trying to change not only tools, but also culture and process.
Beyond discussion of the "why", there will also be in-depth opportunities for learning the "how" that will help you bring Enterprise 2.0 to your business.
The Enterprise 2.0 Advisory Board is comprised of leading experts in the fields of technology for business, collaboration, culture change, and collective intelligence.
Some thoughts: In Web 1.0, every startup wanted to be the next Microsoft. In Web 2.0, they all want to be the next Google. At Enterprise 2.0, it seems that many aim to compete with both Google and Microsoft, offering online office suites that they hope can combine the best of both worlds: The collaboration capabilities of a Web-based suite combined with the control over your own data of locally installed software.
