Years ago, while working inside a global Fortune 500 company, the CIO voiced these words and they stuck with me.
If we only knew what we know.
He was referring to the silos between divisions and product lines and ideas. He was pointing out that divisions were not talking to one another and not presenting “one company” to the customer. “If we only knew what we know” was meant to highlight the missing connections and relationships within the company. The inability to get beyond the structures that were getting in the way of being collaborative was stifling the company’s ability to better serve customers and grow revenue.
This story came to mind because I listened to the live broadcast of the Enterprise 2.0 Conference this morning. The opening keynote, JP Rangaswami, CIO and Chief Scientist, BT Design, put forth the rhetorical question,
Are we seeing a shift from the individual to the collective? Are we seeing the growth of the collective?
He spoke of trends driving this change.
- New environment. Businesses used to be hierarchies of products and and customers. It’s now a network of relationships and capabilities. It’s now mobile, dispersed teams.
- New generation. Today’s workforce is accustomed to new ways of interacting and sharing knowledge.
- New tools. New tools are fundamentally changing the nature of work. E.g. Wikis, blogs, online communities, enterprise social software, social networking, video, and so on.
His message—collaboration is emerging as a top priority for business leaders to achieve the growth and innovation they want. The purpose of Enterprise 2.0 collaborative technologies is to help organizations move faster—to give employees access and input to more information, content, and expertise than ever before. Innovation is unleashed when human interaction, when people are empowered. And at the heart of innovation is an innate human ability to make ideas real. It’s not the technology, it’s the people.
I like that message. Enterprise 2.0 technologies are not about the “technology”—it’s about the people that use the technology to create, to innnovate, to share, to collaborate. The real power of Enterprise 2.0 technologies is the connection to one another. Good stuff.
For many organizations, the question to adopt enterprise 2.0 technologies isn’t “if” or “when”, but “how.” As change leaders, our role is big here! I really liked what Gentry Underwood, Head of Knowledge Sharing at IDEO, had to say. He shared three principles for driving innovation through technology. The points are simple, concise, and excellent beacons as you go forth and determine how to adopt Enterprise 2.0 strategies.
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Great post, Melissa.
This line resonated with me:
The purpose of Enterprise 2.0 collaborative technologies is to help organizations move faster—to give employees access and input to more information, content, and expertise.
No argument here, but is that information any good? I often wonder if past practices and a lack of consistency means that we're sharing less-than-quality data. I shutter to think about decisions made on such information.
Hi Phil,
I think enterprise 2.0 collaborative technologies are about taking the discussion around the coffee machine – when folks were co-located – and moving it into an environment that builds global community (no matter where you're located). There's no difference around the "quality" of data – it's just dialogue. The insight will come from the "collective", as JP Rangaswami notes. Simply giving visibility to the dialogue allows for collaboration and collaboration is where sparks of insight occur and that's where quality decisions are made.
Thanks for commenting!
~Melissa
Thanks for the comment, Melissa. I'll be the first to admit that my conception of Enterprise 2.0 differs from that of many others. I look at it beyond collaboration. It's about, at least to me, managing data, and making it more accessible via clouds, SaaS, mobility, and SOA.
But I'll save my rant for another day. It's waaaaaaaaaaay too nice out.