Here in Germany, Web2.0 is in everybody’s mouth. Newspapers have been reporting about it lately, and some things are around the buzz word–blogs, wikis, social networks, wikipedia, facebook or youtube, get more and more attention. Whereas in the first wave most people wondered where and when will the next cool start-up spring up. The debate went on whether blogs are a threat to media or not. The wikipedia phenomenon brought finally the knowledge and collaboration dimension of web2.0 to the spotlight.
Ironically, in my opinion, the IT departments–responsible still–have often not taken the participative web as a top priority. And I wonder whether this is different elsewhere. By the way, a similar phenomenon is seen in the knowledge management arena. In relevant magazines, web2.0 and its potential for knowledge sharing and learning has hit the headlines this Summer. However, not many blogs are even around (Please notify me if you know some). One exception is Martin Röll, who wrote very early, albeit he stopped his blog, about knowledge sharing through blogs. Three other nice blogs are zungu.net, frogpond.de and Wissensmanagement2.0.
Going back to the topic, I wonder why many IT-specialists do not show a wider interest in web2.0 and share some enthusiasm. Here are some assumptions:
- IT-experts know by own experience that web2.0 is just another approach, and doubt the hype around it.
- IT-experts are bored of the triviality of this kind of software such as blogs and wikis.
- IT-departments completely underestimate the effects for web2.0 software.
- Web2.0 is seen secondary as technological and it is much more about culture, communication and commitment (3C)
“Like it or not, Web 2.0 is coming,” says Lisa Hoover in the context of enterprise2.0, and this different tools will be used in organizations. Euan agrees by stating: The 100% guaranteed easiest way to do Enterprise 2.0? DO NOTHING. It strikes me to see how many people individually already use web2.0 tools such as blogs or wikis, or they arrange meetings with doodle, use their own desktop sharing and collaborate over google docs. And this all goes easily around the firewall because it is all browser-based. Nevertheless, some obstacles remain as Bev Trayner describes in her blog post Web2.0 is a long way from people at work.
I think it is important to grasp the potential of collaboration and to prove it can be a reduction of information overload and leverage new forms of collaboration. However, from a knowledge management perspective, it is also critical because of how can we share information, when it is distributed over the web. How can it be linked and searched from the intranet? Nevertheless, I am still puzzled about the reluctance towards web2.0 even though it can become a decisive and comparative advantage, being it internally for communication or externally to flourish cooperation.
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Fully agree. Just to give one example: In fact, what I’m really looking for, is an (internal) Facebook for enterprises/organizations, where everyone updates his status message regularly and you can see who’s currently working on what, meeting with whom, participating in which event, etc. Would be so easy then to step in and say “hey, you’re working on this? That’s interesting for me too, let’s do this together!”
I think an important factor that you missed is the fact that some of their skills become obsolete. Never easy to think of yourself as redundant.
I second Johannes request for an enterprise edition of facebook. A twitter feed on the intranet would be sufficient for the time being. And MS Outlook already offers this in some ways as it shows the calendar entries next to the name (right click, menu, “xyz is in a meeting since 2h”). So what we need is an interface that directly pulls the twitter messages (via sms for instance) into outlook calendar.
To complete your above mentioned list on why IT departments are so slow on picking up the web 2.0 hype: i think it is also because they are IT guys – and just think inside this IT frame of providing reliabe IT. Instead of what their technology offers to others and how all this might help to enhance internal communication.
Hi Christian
I found this very interesting as related to the IKM Emeregent programme, I have been been trying to identify audiences for the programme. I thought that our 3 key audiences were: IKM (information and knowledge management) professionals; senior managers and policyshapers; and members of the Programme itself. Then I started thinking, what about IT managers?
I have now included IT managers in the audiences but, in a realted blog post, I’m also arguing that IT managers are often the enemy of good IKM practice. Why?
Firstly, they like technology for its own sake, often the bigger the better. Secondly, and this comes from personal experience, they often torpedo smaller initiatives with more development relevance. Thirdly, they don’t often have an understanding of the realities of Southern partners and this has led to many partners being obliged to share information of the organization’s own portals with a total disregard for connectvity issues. And this list goes on.
I realise that this is a bit of an extreme view – and not all IT managers are like this – but when you think that IT budgets and KM budgets often come out of the same pot (this is something I found from case studies of a number of organizations), the arguement begins to look convincing.
Why is this relevant to your post? Well, I think it is showing the same sort of evidence. Web 2.0 may be threatening to IT managers as it is a sort of organized chaos which they can’t control. So I see it as more as a control or power issue than anything else.
If you think this is too extreme, I’d be happy to hear from you.
My experience of people working in IT departments is that few of them have played with Web2.0 tools and their enthusiasm mirrors the enthusiasm of average/slightly above average users of Internet.
That’s understandable to me as Web2.0 is as much about a mindset as it is about the tools.
Also have to examine my own expectations that IT people should be different from other people pursuing a career in an organisational hierarchy. What reasons are there for stepping out of line?
Great post. Will share with CG IT group, he, he…
BTW and because you wanted to be notified: With the KS project of the CG we do try to blog on KS related to our business Agricultural Research for Development. Personnaly I am still learning and looking for the “right” scope… but still: http://ictkm.wordpress.com/tag/knowledge-sharing/
Funny(?) that I feel that the mindset you’re describing here (almost 1.5 years ago is pretty much still the same.
The big difficult thing about the 2.0 things is that they’re really not fundamentally technical but sociological: about mindset rather than tools — even if the tools are the thing empowers the mindset.
But the need for change is bigger than .. in my life, at least.
I’m more and more inclined to think that The Change will come from outside rather than in. This has already been the case but I’m really not seeing that the giants will be able to have enough agility to change except for rhetorics (or patching up in panic, which we can see in some places to an extent already).
Interesting times.