The Case For Enterprise 2.0

Note: ‘Open-Source Spying’, published on December 3 in The New York Times by Clive Thompson, describes a focused implementation of Web 2.0 within the enterprise.

All definitions of Enterprise 2.0 thus far describe it in terms of the potential released by Web 2.0 tools - Search/Link/Author/Tags/Extensions/Signals or SLATES or social software tools for short. Andrew McAfee has devoted his blog to development of its potential for raising collective ability. The US intelligence community is betting big on Enterprise 2.0 as it urgently needs to overcome its bureaucratic chain of command to combat an agile network like Al Qaeda. Its approach reflects the case for Enterprise 2.0 powering superior collective ability:

• If personnel were encouraged to post personal blogs and wikis on the community’s private network — linking to their favorite reports or the news bulletins or blogs they considered important — then mob intelligence would take over. The rapid self-organization would inexorably refine facts and draw together disconnected information, hard to sort through, for unearthing plots like 9/11.
• Far-flung personnel around the world could contribute day or night without the constraints of being in context.
• Once the community has a robust and mature wiki and blog knowledge-sharing Web space it shall achieve agility in responding to unforeseen demands.

The US intelligence community is putting in place the security structure needed to support the required shift from the prevailing ‘need to know’ culture to a ‘need to share’ philosophy.