We hear it all over the place since the term Web 2.0 was first coined. Learning 2.0, Government 2.0, Business 2.0, and Whatever 2.0. Everything is 2.0. It refers to changes in the particular domain. The Web matured very fast during a short period of time, and the term 2.0 was used to show the importance of the development, of the change. Since then, the term 2.0 is a buzzword. The term is applied to bring ‘old’ concept back to life, sometimes rightly, mostly as a marketing trick.

In this list there’s also the concept of ‘Enterprise 2.0’. When you try to unravel what it exactly means, you would probably come up with a definition like ‘The new way of running an organization’, or ‘Changing the way an organization works’. What is really meant by the term Enterprise 2.0 refers to the usage of new web-based, so called social technologies. Social and technology, strange combination by the way… So it refers to bringing the social ‘Web 2.0’ inside an organization.

On the Internet, more and more people are getting used to make use of social networks like Facebook, or share video’s on YouTube, or express themselves by using Twitter. They are all called social and Web 2.0, just like blogs and wiki’s. People spend more and more time on these networks and sites, and are able to find more information and people. This is great, and, as opposed to e-mail, the reach of these tools is far bigger.

The usage of these Web 2.0 tools in organizations is more problematic. Understandable, but still problematic. What if people in an organization would blog about their experiences on the job, post video’s of internal parties, or contribute knowledge to Wikipedia that is an important competitive advantage for the company? For many companies this is not desirable. The question that can be asked then is, how can we leverage the collective knowledge of all the people on the Internet, if we can not share and contribute to them? A bridge too far, at least for now.

The question is, how can Enterprise 2.0 be effective in companies then? How can it contribute to productivity, to finding the right people and information in the organization? Can we use the same tools that are publicly available? Many more questions can be asked here, not all can be answered easily. It depends on the goals of the organization, and it depends on the unique identity of the organization as well. Just introducing an Intranet with all these tools will not automatically lead to success, the organization can not be compared to the outside world. In many cases it is not worth it in the first place.

There is a big difference in the motivations for people to make use of these tools, even for the same person in their own time and the time they are on the job. Think voluntary versus paid obligations. Managers play an important role here. They have to make it possible for people to spend time on these tools, the culture of the company should be in line, but it should never be pushed. It is a path that is long, but can be very fruitful. Know what you’re going into, be aware of the myths, and more importantly, do not make it a fad! It doesn’t have to be, but it helps to think things through before just introducing some new tools. Resistance is on the lurk…