In the endless debate on enterprise 2.0 it seems like we often mistake the tools’ perimeter and the enterprise’s goals.
How does an enterprise work ?
Strategic goals are defined, then translated in strategic projects. In order to achieve the strategics projects, the suitable (or thought being) organization is set up which implies (among others) specific needs operationnal needs which themselves implies new day-to-day needs for employees in order to achieve what they’re asked. And (sometimes) they need tool for that.
The raise of knowledge economy and needs for innovation, flexibility, connections implies, not to throw existing tools away, but to adopt toos that fit this new king of needs. The point is this new generation of tools is coming from the web 2.0. As they only impact day-to-day job can we say that the use of web 2.0 tools inside the enterprise is the enterprise 2.0 ? I don’t think so because enterprise is much more than tools and 2.0 tools adoption in day-to-day job is not enough to requalify the whole enterprise.
One may say that those tools also implies change in management and culture to be fully efficient. I do agree that this may be enterprise 2.0, an enterprise fully aligned on the use of 2.0 tools, from strategy to day-to-day tasks, including organization and management. But there again we can’t honestly think that it’s possible : some things may stay “1.0” or the enterprise may become undrivable.
The truth, I think, is that enteprise has remain 1.0 because it’s what giving it it’s structure, and, at the same time, has to explore it’s informal side, that’s to say having a part of it becoming 2.0.
So the challenge may not be to build a full 2.0 enterprise but to develop the 2.0 side next to the existing 1.0 organization and connect both. The question we’ll have to answer is “how to manage the intersection between the 1.0 (formal, processes, worklows) and 2.0 (informal, connections, autonomy) ?” and not “how to replace 1.0 with 2.0 ?”. Finding the (management and organizational) answer will legitimate web 2.0 tools in the enterprise because they will make sense and will be needed even by the more reluctant people.
Simply because an enterprise is not 1.0 or 2.0, formal and informal but because after having being ran only on formal the enterprise has to learn how to take also benefits from informal to achieve its new challenges. It’s not a matter of OR but a matter of AND, that’s why connexion  will be key . Remember when I wrote that E2.0 won’t kill hierarchy…
Related articles:
Serendipity doesn’t preclude control : a few rules to manage fate within informal networks
When 2.0 dissolves into businesses
11 tips for a friend who’d like to try enterprise 2.0
Will 2.0 learn the enterprise ?
McKinsey identifies 6 key sucess factors for enterprise 2.0
The three dimensions of enterprise 2.0
