No, Enterprise 2.0 is not a Star Trek spin-off
OK … so the perimeter was breached. 2.0 is inside the shields and is running amok. Is it still “Web 2.0”? You could argue yes, but that might not help much. Web 2.0 talks to the changes wrought in the wide-open Web. We need another term, one that speaks to the changes that these technologies, cultures, and practices can have on our own organizations, our own enterprises if you will.
I know, we could call it “Enterprise 2.0!” I think that’s a great name; I just wish I had thought of it. One great piece of ammo you can use to sell this “up the chain” is that a professor at the Harvard Business School actually coined the term “Enterprise 2.0.” That’s right, Harvard. The professor’s name is Andrew McAfee, and he feels pretty strongly about this. He describes the importance of Web 2.0 to corporate entities by saying that, “The new technologies are significant because they can potentially knit together an enterprise and facilitate knowledge work in ways that were simply not possible previously.” So, wow, right? Now we’re not just talking about using wikis to edit documents or blogs in classes, we’re talking about adding utterly new capabilities to the organization’s toolbox. Cool, huh?
McAfee has this very simple definition of Enterprise 2.0, “Enterprise 2.0 is the use of emergent social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers.” Just as we had an earlier take on defining the main aspects of Web 2.0, McAfee also offers us essential elements but states that his focus is “on those platforms that companies can buy or build in order to make visible the practices and outputs of their knowledge workers.” Hey, wait a minute. Practices and outputs? Those sound like things that learning or training departments ought to be concerned with. Aren’t we supposed to be helping people learn best practices and change behaviors? OK, so we’re at least closing that loop a bit.
Now we have a decent grip on what Web 2.0 is. We understand how it may be slipping inside our corporate firewalls already. We also see that when it does come inside, it morphs into something called Enterprise 2.0 which impacts behaviors and outcomes. That’s great, but there are a couple more points that we need to understand about how these technologies are growing, and what we need to understand to make the best use of them.
The big “C”s: Consumerization and Culture
So learning and training departments are accustomed to enterprise-class software, right? We’ve all been to that Candy Mountain known as “installing a LMS” or “setting up the new authoring environment,” right? Well, you might guess that the 2.0 class of software, even if packaged as an enterprise-class product (which we are seeing more and more often, by the way), is different from previous products in many ways, but two of them are important to this discussion.
First, unlike all other previous deployments of enterprise-class software, a “consumerization of the enterprise” is driving this generation.” That is, they are developing and releasing these products to the commercial public for testing and refinement before entering the enterprise. This path has positives, such as the fact that these products have been load-tested and evaluated fairly thoroughly by a demanding audience before being introduced to the corporate market.
There are also warning signs in this model. For example, many of these companies have become takeover targets by larger organizations such as Google and Yahoo! This should not disqualify them from adoption, but it should encourage a certain level of due diligence on an organization’s part prior to adopting a vendor.
Second, Web 2.0 technologies are explicitly not culturally neutral to an organization. Tools such as blogs, wikis, and social networking target outdated and often unrealistic organizational structures and hierarchies. On the face of it, this is neither a pro nor a con, but we must consider this critically important factor in deploying these technologies. No really, we must.
Consumerization – Change from the outside in
The flow used to proceed in an orderly fashion from the enterprise to the consumer. That meant that the government would develop something like the Internet, and then the commercial world would find a way to use it. Or NASA uses Tang, and then everyone buys it. The point is that 2.0 turns that model on its head. People used to go to work for certain companies to have access to the latest and greatest technology, now it is much more likely that you will have less access to leading edge technology at the office than you do at home.
If you want to deploy an internal social network like Facebook, chances are the feature set will be modeled on the existing Facebook, and future upgrades will always be a step behind what Facebook itself is offering.
Why is change management so important to e-Learning 2.0? One reason is that the enterprise is not developing the underlying functionality and feature set of the technologies that are driving e-Learning 2.0. In many cases, not even companies that have traditionally sold software to enterprises are developing the technologies. It is products and technologies aimed at the consumer that are driving the innovation. Ross Mayfield, founder of Social Text, refers to this important trend as the “consumerization of the enterprise.” He describes its impact as:
“... one of the bigger trends reshaping enterprise software. Ask any user of enterprise software if they love it and the answer is no. This will increasingly matter in attracting and retaining employees. As NetGens enter the workforce, representing the biggest demographic shift since the Baby Boomers, the fact is that they want a choice in tools to get most of their work done.”
The scale of penetration of this phenomenon is also unprecedented. As one example, Facebook, which launched in February 2004, is now one of the six most-visited Web sites, and carries about 50 billion page views per month. Facebook now counts over 80% of all college students as members. Since it opened itself to post-university members as well, its population has jumped from 8 million in July 2006, to 43 million in September 2007. One way to look at this is that, almost without exception, every college graduate who enters the workforce from this point forward will have had extensive experience with at least this one powerful harbinger of Learning 2.0.
To understand e-Learning 2.0, get involved with Web 2.0
So we have these powerful feature sets being developed “out there,” and not “in here.” What does that mean for learning professionals? Well for one thing it means you had better be “out there.” If you want a glimpse at the capabilities that you will have to work with, or ones that you’d like to work with, then get an account on del.icio.us, get one on Twitter, start a blog. Get in the mix. This report will contain a great number of sites you can go to and explore; but don’t just visit. Comment on a blog. Join a non-work related community.
This brings us to the second “C” … culture.
Culture – not just for anthropologists
Get ready. I’m going to go all anthropological on you for a second. See, I am an anthropologist. I’ve done the fieldwork, I’ve listened to all the Indiana Jones jokes — I get it. So what, right? Well, all that anthropologists do, cultural anthropologists anyway, is study culture. We study things like the impact of technology on the way a society operates. Are you starting to see the connection? So here is what that perspective is telling me about the impact of 2.0.
It would not be an overstatement to say that the principles and technologies of Web 2.0 and their enterprise cousins have the potential to significantly alter many of the processes and procedures of our organizations. Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams, writing in Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, assert that;
“To succeed it will not be sufficient to simplify existing management strategies. Leaders must think differently about how to compete and be profitable, and embrace a new art and science of collaboration we call wikinomics. This is more than open source, social networking, so-called crowdsourcing, smart mobs, crowd wisdom, or other ideas that touch on the subject. Rather, we are talking about deep changes in the structure and modus operandi of the corporation and our economy, based on new competitive principles such as openness, peering, sharing, and acting globally.”
Understand this: these 2.0 tools are not culturally neutral applications. The very way in which 2.0 operates means that it steps outside the boundaries of traditional silos, departments, and regions. To fully realize the potential of these technologies, even within the very real boundaries of policy and technology that we (and by “we,” I mean you) must operate within, requires a degree of re-thinking about how we create and deploy learning, both internally and externally. It even requires re-thinking the definition of that activity.
One thing to keep in mind when selling 2.0 inside your organization, is to talk to the capabilities that it engenders, and don’t use words like Twitter and Flickr and wiki. You can say, for example, that we should think of the conversations and collaborations that 2.0 can create. In fact Juanita Brown, senior affiliate with MIT’s Sloan School, has argued that we should:
“Imagine that ‘the grapevine’ is not a poisonous plant to be cut off at the roots, but a natural source of vitality to be cultivated and nourished. Imagine that it’s branching; intertwining shoots are the natural pathways through which information and energy flow in the organization. Consider that these informal networks of learning conversations are as much a core business process as marketing, distribution, or product development. In fact, thoughtful conversations around questions that matter might be the core process in any company – the source of organizational intelligence that enables the other business processes to create positive results.”
We can go back even further and mention that Alan Webber, writing in the Harvard Business Review three years earlier than Brown argued a similar point when he said that:
“The most important work in the knowledge economy is conversation. Conversations are the way knowledge workers discover what they know and share it with their colleagues, and in the process create new knowledge for the organization. The panoply of modern information and communication technologies … can help knowledge workers in this process, but all depends on the quality of conversations that such technologies support.”
Does any of that sound like dynamics that the learning or training department should be involved in? I know that it might sound very different from the way we think about our jobs now, but that’s the point – it is different. More so, these things will fall apart if our corporate cultures are not ready to accept them. Oh, and don’t try to pawn this off as a generational thing either. Frappaolo and Keldsen note that, “in fact, culture demonstrated a greater effect on the potential for success with Enterprise 2.0, and the speed with which it can be deployed, than did age affiliation.”
To put a real fine point on it, Frappaolo and Keldsen continue, “an enterprise culture that is prone to knowledge sharing, user empowerment, distributed decision making, and open collaboration exerts great influence on the attitudes, opinions, and approaches to Enterprise 2.0. The difference that having the ‘right culture’ can make to deployment of Enterprise 2.0 is fundamental.”
An action plan
E-Learning 2.0 is coming. It’s already inside the firewall. Consumers of all ages are driving it. It’s different, and it may well make our jobs different. Oh yeah, the boss probably won’t understand either. So what do you do? Here is a short list:
- Try the 2.0 applications. I said it before, I’ll say it again – you have to try this stuff to fully appreciate its capabilities.
- Learn to talk about those capabilities, and not the weird names the products go by. Really we’re talking about publishing, editing, sharing, and collaborating – just in new and better ways.
- Talk to your other departments. Find out if they are deploying any new or upgraded software that you may be able to leverage.
- Appreciate and anticipate that these tools can and will change your corporate culture. Remember that first story about no one selling change management along with an LMS? Ask the vendors selling 2.0 if they have any anthropologists on staff.
Finally, and this is important and tough, develop a process that lets you quickly evaluate these technologies, that just seem to come pouring out of the woodwork, against your organization’s requirements. You have to have some perspective, some way to gauge the value or potential value of these tools. My recommendation for doing this centers around forming an “IPT”… an integrated project team. The trick this time is, really make it integrated — get someone from IT, someone from HR, someone from your team, maybe even get leadership involved. IT will help answer the “can we do it” question. HR will be there as you think of new ways to change the way people work, and to think with you about how people may actually be assessed differently. You’ll be there to maintain the focus on learning, and leadership will be there to align the activity with a business requirement and help craft the language which those in the “C” suite will understand.
I did forget one thing. After 2.0 comes 3.0, and then comes 4.0 and so on. This is not a one-step process of “let’s buy some 2.0.” This truly is a fundamental change on the same level as the phone and e-mail. Don’t be scared. The Guild is here for you with great research, and ways that you can share your problems and successes with your peers; and all the authors of The eLearning Guild’s 360° Research Report on eLearning 2.0 are also here. We live in this stuff, and we’d love nothing more than to help you find your way. Thanks for reading.
References
Brown, Juanita and Isaacs, David. ”Conversation as a Core Business Process.” The Systems Thinker newsletter, Volume 7, Number 10 (December, 1996). Cambridge, MA: Pegasus Communications.
Frappaolo, Carl and Keldsen, Dan. “Enterprise 2.0: Agile, Emergent, and Integrated,” AIIM Market IQ, Q1 2008. Recovered September 9, 2008 from http://www.aiim.org/ResourceCenter/Research/MarketIQ/Article.aspx?ID=34464 .
Grossman, Lev. “Time’s Person of the Year: You.” Time, December 13, 2006. Recovered September 6, 2008 from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html.
Mayfield, Ross. “Enterprise Social Software doesn't get you laid, it gets you promoted.” Ross Mayfield’s Weblog, December 9, 2007. Recovered December 10, 2007 from http://ross.typepad.com/blog/2007/12/enterprise-soci.html
McAfee, Andrew. “Enterprise 2.0: The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration.” MIT Sloan Management Review. Spring 2006, Vol. 47, No. 3, pp. 21-28. Recovered September 6, 2008 from http://sloanreview.mit.edu/smr/issue/2006/spring/06/ .
McAfee, Andrew. “The First Year of Enterprise 2.0, and the Second,” 31 December 2006. Recovered December 20, 2007 from http://blog.hbs.edu/faculty/amcafee/index.php/faculty_amcafee_v3/the_first_year_of_enterprise_20_and_the_second/ .
O’Reilly, Tim. “What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software.” September 30, 2005. Recovered December 18, 2007 from http://www.oreillynet.com/lpt/a/6228.
Tapscott, Don and Williams, Anthony D. (2006) Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. New York: Penguin
Valdes, Ray. “Facebook and the Emerging Social Platform Wars.” Gartner, #G00152268. October 17, 2007.
Webber, Alan. “What’s So New about the New Economy?” Harvard Business Review. January-February, 1993, pp. 24-42.
