No? Don’t panic…that’s the subject of this post.
Perharps you’ve heard about web 2.0? Not either? It’s supposed to be the new trend of the internet, called “social web”. It’s not about technology anymore (despite some are still trying to explain it by telling how it works instead of what it brings), it’s about uses. Using net services are not a goal but a way to get to a different management because a new kind of web services is empowering social relationship, co-operation, co-buildind, co-thiking and co-whatever you want. The web is now on the way to be a worldwide think tank, a huge collaborative open space.
I first used the term “management 2.0” in last december, in a post on my french blog in order to say that companies are more and more interessed in collaborative practices, participative management etc… That it’s not a very new thing (Mc Gregor thought about it years before for example) but what’s new is that, using the new kind of services that’s being developped, we can bring people centric behaviors to the company’s information system.
That’s the real point about management 2.0. Before, people who tried to adopt collaborative pratices had to face information systems that didn’t allow to develop social links and take added value from it. Now you can build a real social network based on communities of practices or interests, share information and have a collaborative and creative approach of relationship between people in the company, even if they’re located all over the world and doesn’t even know one the other.
As a conclusion, management 2.0 is not about web technology: it’s about management practices empowered by social web-powered services. But what’s important are practices: the information system side of the thing is just some means not a goal.
Let’s learn more about it in the next posts..