These late days we could see a lot of posts about enterprise 2.0 adoption, some of them saying it will be very hard, others saying that enterprise 2.0 won’t change the organisation. In the one hand I’m convinced we’re at the beginning of a very important transformation in enterprises. In the other I know there’s a lot a brakes, of fears, that make enterprise 2.0 hard to accept and to implement. In fact, and as I said here, the question is to know what we’re really talking about. At first sight you would be surprised if I tell you how much I appeciated a note by Tom Davenport called “Why enterprise 2.0 won’t transform organizations“. In fact and I said there the point is to define what enterprise 2.0 really means. And, even if Tom Davenport’s note may have disappointed some people, I think it’s really close to truth.
He says that, whatever you do, enterprise remains something hierarchical and political and that blogs and wikis won’ be enough to transform it. Saying that he points at what seems to me being a big misunderstanding about enterprise 2.0 : if we agree to say that enterprise 2.0 is an enterprise which uses blogs, wikis and other 2.0 things, I’m affraid we’re going to face big troubles. The challenge is to transform a “geek” vision in a corporate vision.
We’ll never repeat this enough : those tools involve practices for indviduals which are often in contradiction with what his ecosystem wants him to do. But nothing’s lost…it’s also a big opportunity.
That’s true that enterprise will remain a political and hierachical place…and that’s a good thing beacause such organisations can’t run on improvisation. But there are different ways of being hierarchical and political.
Tools won’t be enough to transform organisations : tools are the consequence of the transformation and I find it dangerous to think that providing enterprise with tools will change anything.
2.0 tools must be considered in a global scale including interpersonnal interactions. If we work on organisation, tools will follow. According to me, enterprise 2.O isn’t characterized by tools but by practices that made tools unavoidable. If we report everything to tools we will soon forget the social basis they rely on and focus on technology instead of social practices, which is exactly the opposite of the 2.0 state of mind.
We must never forget that it’s the function which creates the organ…than human beings don’t breath because they have lungs but they have lungs because they need to breath. People won’t adopt a tool if they don’t need it (also readz Jason Kolb about that).
As a conclusion, enterprise 2.O netiher is impossible or dangerous and there are ways to have tools adopted in a win/win deal beetween people and organisation. We only have to start projects by the right point : organisation and people.
Change the way people work in order to help the enterprise meet this decade’s goals and the need for technology will become obvious. But only at this condition.
