When I saw the last McAfee vs Davenport’s debate agenda I was satisfied to see the definition battle was over and time has come to talk about the realty and effectiveness of entreprise 2.0. Actually people know that “something is changing”, that enterprises have to work more on information and innovation, that serendity has to have a room by the processes’ side, now time has come not only to work on definitions and concepts, to fight on naming or content, but also to explain how to make it work.
And, one more time, despite this attractive agenda, I’m not convinced the audience learned much about “how to make E2.0 work”.
My opinion about some keypoints of this debate where both protagonists overplayed their role without consideration of what people really expected from them.
• The very concept of enterprise 2.0
Does enterprise 2.0 exist ? Yes. Put only as a concept that brought together a lot of people thinking about different subjects . Gathering all of that under an one and only banner gave more visibility to what we believe in and helped us to merge a lot of topics into a global schema. But, when talking about practical implementation, enterprise 2.0 doesn’t exist as a standalone form of organization. It has to be implemented (wholly or partly) into the existing enterprise DNA.
First because we can’t change everything at the same time, second (I’ll discuss this a few lines under…) because structure is essential to run and pilot a company, third because if a part of the web 2.0 philosophy is the end of the “one size fits all” theory what implies that there is not a tool that works for everything, I thing that E2.0 implementation won’t be the same everywhere considering projetcs, people, context, culture, needs etc…
• The role of tools
Will tools change the enteprise ? Or will the improved organization adopt new tools ? The obvious answer is : both ! But be sure of one thing : tools are only tools and doesn’t work without a purpose.
Davenport said everything we’re talking about was already possible with “old tools”. He’s not wrong but, once, again, he overplayed.
- Old tools don’t make everything possible. Even when then can, it implies to perfectly master them which is not everyone’s ability.
- Web 2.0 make things easier : we don’t need tools that can “make it” but only for a few skilled people. We need tools everybody can use.
• Enterprise transformation
Enterprise 2.0 won’t transform the organization. I totally agree with Davenpor on this point. But what do we say when talking about organization ?
There will always be hierarchy, process, workflows, people who decide and people who execute. Structure is vital and hierachy has to be preserved.
What will change is the way people will interact within the structure : ideas will come from employees, decision making will involve them, there will be more room from serendipity…and this is McAfee’s opinion.
They’re both right : it only people if you consider the formal of qualitative aspect of the organization.
Saying that they only consider endogenous factors, neglecting exogenous ones :
- the digital natives who will be more and more numerous in the enterprise and who will bring with them their specific DNA. Of course, the risk of aculturation exists but it won’t work for long : the “the law of big numbers” will work and enterprise needs this new DNA to face its challenges.
- The enterprise doesn’t master its context : information and innovation are key in performance, they are hiring new kinds of people, flexibility and autonomy are more and more needed… they don’t have to power to change that. This change of paradigm is to enterprise what climate warming up is to our society : something we have to do with even if we’d rather want it not to exist.
• A conclusion
Now people know things are changing they need to know how to change successfully. And those who can make 2.0 become true in their company don’t need “what is…?” anymore, they ask us for “how to …?”. Foreseeing the future is a nice and necessary exercise but what’s needed is something that works now, in our day to day context, in 2007 not in 2020 !
Let’s talk about business, 2.0 integration in process, let’s show the benefits an stop building the “nicest definition of enterprise 2.0″.
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