More Enterprise 2.0 ...

There have been quite a few blogs written around what Enterprise 2.0 is over the last few days. One of the blogs which brings together thoughts from a number of blogs has been posted by Paula Thornton. There is quite a wide view of Enterprise 2.0 which you get from here. Though, more people think that theres something to look at with Enterprise 2.0, there are people who also believe that this is nothing much more than the flavour of the week/month/year ... or thoughts on similar lines.

What comes from here is that Enterprise 2.0 seems to be connected to the technology, to larger or lesser extents by different people. Which probably misses the point. One important thing about Enterprise 2.0, the way i see it, is that this is about the form of the organization in a scenario which has more participation and collaboration from across the organization than we see today. What is important to see is the implication this could have for the organization (at least in theory, because probably this would not be something which would come around, or not anytime soon, but more about that later). The implication is the inclusivity of decision-making within the organization. Again, there have been discussions about how this will impact hierarchies in organizations, and while some believe that hierarchies will disappear, i dont think so, as i have written before. This is the aspect of Enterprise 2.0 (or, the interaction between communities and hierarchy that would probably occur in organizations, and the resultant form the organizational structure would take) that doesnt come out of the discussion.

One of the interesting reactions which Paula mentions is from this post:

Enterprise 2.0’s true potential is to facilitate a paradigm shift that fundamentally changes operating models and leverages the existing reality of work.

Probably the change wont be as huge as had been anticipated earlier, what we can be reasonable certain of is that change is there, and this would be seen going forward, too, though the exact shape is something which we cant be sure of now, not just because this would depend on the interactions between communities and hierarchies, but also because the extent of change would also vary from organization to organziation.

Another interesting idea that comes out is that of emergence, which comes from this post. The idea being that as people discuss things as part of a community, through this conversation, things emerge. Whether these are new products, new markets, strategies, etc., these arise from the minds of people, and emerge through conversations. And this process is enabled by Web 2.0 tools (though these tools are not the organization, which is where the difference between Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 comes).

From here, it can be seen that Enterprise 2.0 is about the form and functioning of organizations. To what measure this will come through is something we will need to see, as we have already discussed. Any thoughts, please do post comments.