The Case Against Enterprise 2.0

"It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out nor more doubtful of success nor more dangerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things ........ lukewarmness arising partly from the incredulity of mankind who does not truly believe in anything new until they actually have experience of it. " - Machiavelli (The Prince, 1513)

Divining a pattern is not as simple as connecting dots - that could amount to wishful thinking. False starts will inevitably take place before missing pieces of evidence are identified, found and a genuine pattern emerges. A structure to surface dots only develops facts. It:

• Does not deliver a structure for connecting the dots or taking informed action.
• Fails to drive the evolution of opinion towards a consensus for concerted action.
• Is impervious to time deadlines.
• Does not encourage recording and submission of sensitive information.

On the internet a mere 0.01% of the over 1000 million population contributes to the English Language wikipedia. Yet over 100,000 individuals emerge to establish meaningful content. For any enterprise to benefit from “social software” it needs to persuade employees, who may number thousands, to begin blogging and creating wikis all at once. Else, the critical mass needed for meaningful data is unlikely. Consistent collaboration by a multitude today requires a supporting culture. The secret to achieve it has yet to be divined.

The New York Times article ‘Open-Source Spying’ has a telling report: “…. Clay Shirky of N.Y.U. points out, most wikis and blogs flop. A wiki might never reach a critical mass of contributors and remain anemic until eventually everyone drifts away; many bloggers never attract any attention and, discouraged, eventually stop posting. Wikipedia passed the critical-mass plateau a year ago, but it is a rarity. “The normal case for social software is failure,” Shirky said.”

The success of Enterprise 2.0 for raising collective ability requires not only a culture for adoption of Web 2.0 tools but also an effective means to invite sensitive information as well as take collective action on the intelligence that surfaces.