Enterprise 2.0

Enterprise 2.0 is the use of social media and social networking tools in a business setting. Sounds easy enough but Enterprise 2.0 is so much more than this. The term was purported to by first used by Andrew McAfee (a professor of IT at MIT and Harvard) in the spring of 2006, although there are others that are sometimes credited with coining this term. Whoever first defined and used Enterprise 2.0, the main idea is to encourage employees to exchange ideas, learn from each other and become more independent learners. Some of the tools used in Enterprise 2.0 are blogs, wikis, and in-house social networking sites (similar to Facebook).

Legacy systems, i.e., the internet or web, impose structure prior to use by employees, where Enterprise 2.0 encourages use over structure. Before continuing to discuss Enterprise 2.0, it is beneficial to know what Web 2.0 includes, as Enterprise 2.0 is often contrasted with Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is defined as the development of applications to allow information sharing and collaboration on the web, i.e, it allows internet users to interact with one another rather than just passively viewing information.

Enterprise 2.0 vs Web 2.0

Enterprise 2.0	Web 2.0
Internal facing	External facing
Behind the firewall	Open to the world
Business	Social
Knowledge capture	Sharing random things/thoughts
Wiki, blog	Websites
Productive & Efficiency	Time consuming
Reduction of email	Email producing
Collaboration

The emphasis with Enterprise 2.0 is collaboration and information sharing within the business or organization. Some possible uses of Enterprise 2.0 are: profile pages for products, an online community within a business used to find someone within the business with a particular knowledge or skill, RSS feeds to keep employees informed, and wikis for company documentation.

The most important aspect of Enterprise 2.0, in my opinion, is keeping everything behind the firewall, i.e., the documentation is not available to the world. This is especially important to keep intellectual property protected. Another important thing is to be sure the information and documentation sharing within the business/company is correct. This requires someone within the business to actively monitor and edit the wikis to be sure the information available is correct and accurate. If employees use the wikis or blogs as a resource for information to provide to customers/clients then this is especially critical. And if I am honest in my evaluation of Enterprise 2.0, I don’t see it taking the place of more structured processes and documentation because of the risk of working with inaccurate and/or misleading information. I think using blogs within a business as an informal way to seek opinions or subject matter experts would be one of the more common uses of the tools included in Enterprise 2.0.

In our MIST7500 class, we talked about and used several of the tools included when talking about Enterprise 2.0. Most notably are: aggregations, blog sites, wikis, social media, and application programming interfaces (APIs). We had class assignments to set up and use aggregations, whether RSS feeds or news aggregation tools. We also had to establish a blog that we used to share our experiences in the MIT program in the Terry College of Business. We also used our blogs to share research and to share interesting information with other classmates. This is similar to how a blog would be used within a business, I imagine. We also used Wikipedia many times when researching different topics during class discussions. And when I have to research something I often begin with Wikipedia and then search blogs for additional information, especially for internet technology topics. Even though I use many of the Enterprise 2.0 tools, I don’t always trust the information, you might say I use the information but I verify, verify, verify.

The end of the semester

My goodness, where did the time go. It seems only 2 weeks ago that we were entering Room 108 for the very first time, some people knew each other but most did not. I was very nervous because I don't have an IT technical background, I have a business background. I have managed programmers and you do pick up some bits and pieces of programming but not enough to "talk the talk".

What a difference a semester can make. Now I can "talk the talk", most of the time. One of the most amazing things was the willingness of my class mates to help me get up to speed in using the software and techniques needed to accomplish the tasks assigned in the Internet Technology class. My class mates are awesome! I hope I will be afforded the opportunity to repay their kindnesses when the business and project management classes come around.