Even if cloud computing is not the same thing as social software and enterprise 2.0 et is more about the way tools are delivered than functionnal classication, it makes interesting shortcuts in order to remind people of some obvious things that are too often forgotten.
I always repeat that social tools related benefits are not to be searched into the tools but in people’s work which is most of times nothing 2.0 at all, and, at the end, in production. Intangible makes sense only when used jointly with tangible and, even if some people may find it shoking or dream-breaking, when it serves to make real money.
One can do everything in a 2.0 mood, should this buzzword really mean something, but at the end benefits have to be found on the ground, and not on the clouds. In a jumble :
• Politics 2.0 but at the end still counting ballots
• Innovation 2.0 but what matters are the number of new things actually launched or the saved money.
• Training 2.0 but what is important is the way the trainee’s performance is improved
• Marketing 2.0, but even if it’s nice when thousands of people talk about you brand, what matters is to sell more or in a more cost efficient way.
• More generally “work 2.0” but at then end people mainly care about their pay-slip.
Just the once won’t hurt, I’ll refer to the general public web to end my demontration with the clear-headed Cyrille de Lasteyrie (aka vinvin) who works for Seesmic besides Loïc Le Meur and the keynote he made during last podcamp Montreal.
Cyrille told the audience that every online acitivities, especially in relation with video contents, are time consumer and that there’s always a point beyond which you have to monetize them, something that only very few people success to do. And he followed with the example of “Bonjour America†.
“Bonjour America” didn’t make him earn anything except people’s esteem, and we all know that’s a currency bankers rarely accept to fill one’s bank overdraft. In the other hand it served as a business card that made other things possible. No one offered him to fund “Bonjour America” on a wider scale by some opportinities were given to him to do other things, more tranditional, but fundable and funded.
It seems to me that it’s an excellent example of many things than happen online in terms of networks or contents production: very few value by themselves but an incredible value when people manage to tranform it “in real life”. They are only levers, but levers that help people making things in the concrete world.
What’s the value of the audience of a blog ? Of a network ? Of all the information that can be found on the web ? Nothing if using it in real life is impossible or has no sense. Huge in the opposite situation. But what will have value will not be the intagible but what will have been done because of it.
In my opinion a similar reflexion can be applied to enterprise 2.0, doesn’t it ?
Even if it’s not the only point he addresses, I advise you to watch the video of his speech (sorry…for once it’s in french)
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