Enterprise 2.0 And The Knowing-Doing Gap

The cases 'for' and 'against' Enterprise 2.0 need to be reconciled to achieve superior collective ability. Social software presents an excellent means to surface and access facts, and coordinate ad-hoc participation in developing and linking facts across space and time. However, it is not a means to define responsibility and accountability for executive action, promote the work environment, guide best practices, or inspire and channel the thinking of personnel, viz., not an enabler of the business administration that determines collective ability. It also does little to make life easier for personnel, e.g., manage their anxieties or observe the discipline essential for collective working.

The cases 'for' and 'against' Enterprise 2.0 can be simply reconciled by separating the infrastructure for information gathering and verification from that for business administration, viz., by acknowledging the Knowing-Doing gap. It is likely that superior business administration will foster adoption of the social software and hasten the required critical mass for its sustained and reliable operation. It will certainly raise collective ability.

While IT has succeeded in leveraging its virtual space to raise social interaction for better knowing, it has yet to succeed in investing intelligence in the virtual space for superior business administration. The abandonment by the FBI in 2006 of a new $170 million computer system, developed to upgrade its Case File System, demonstrates this. In a paper at my website I have identified the problems that must be resolved by any attempt to raise collective ability. It would be wishful thinking to believe that use of social software alone shall be enough to raise the level of collective ability.

The problem in improving knowledge work productivity for raising collective ability was identified by Peter Drucker in his ‘Managing For The Future’ published in 1991:
“Capital cannot be substituted for people in knowledge and service work. Nor does new technology by itself generate higher productivity in such work. In making and moving things, capital and technology are factors of production. In knowledge and service work they are tools of production. Whether they help productivity or harm it depends on what people do with them, on the purpose to which they are being put, for instance, or on the skill of the user.

Drucker, for all practical purposes, stated the conventional wisdom that applies even today. It implies that only personnel possess the intelligence to organize and drive superior collective ability. Personnel rarely have the time and energy to spare. Superior collective ability with any consistency is rare.