Interactive/Social Media Insights

Dionne Hintchcliffe is a really smart Enterprise 2.0 thinker, and someone whose blog (at http://web2.socialcomputingmagazine.com/) you ought to be reading regularly.

He has a post up this weekend titled ‘Ten Aspects of Web 2.0 Strategy That Every CTO and CIO Should Know,’ and you ought to read it.

And you ought to realize that I think he’s fundamentally wrong about several things he discusses.

Let’s start with his list (note: he’s got long interesting explanations of each over at his blog; I’ve brought over the lede for each and them have my own comments below each):

1. It’s not about technology, it’s about the changes it enables.

Here I’ll agree completely; it’s possible to use Enterprise 2.0 thinking and tools with almost any kind of technology (some enterprise-scale technology projects, not so much…)

2. The implications of 2.0 stands many traditional views on their head and so change takes more time than usual.

It’s not that they take more time, it’s that instead of embodying existing business processes in technology, which is what much of Web 1.0 and traditional enterprise software were about, these tools corrode many existing command-and-control business processes by empowering people who have typically been consumers of information and services.

3. Get the ideas, concepts, and vocabulary out into the organization and circulating.

Absolutely. Creating discussion and acceptance of these concepts is probably the most critical thing that C-level leadership can do.

4. Existing management methods and conventional wisdom are a hard barrier to 2.0 strategy and transformation..

See my comments to 2), above.

5. Avoiding external disruption is hard but managing self-imposed risk caused by 2.0 is easier.

I’ll disagree strongly here; managing organizational change is extremely hard - harder in many cases than managing a command-and-control driven company’s responses to outside stimuli.

6.Incubators and pilots projects can help create initial environments for success with 2.0 efforts.

Yes, they are critical to implementing 2.0. But more critical are the ‘off-the-books’ 2.0 projects that are probably happening within organizations today. Much like the PC revolution, in which centralized IT shops suddenly found themselves faced with hundreds of empowered users - who they battled before they embraced - organizations today probably have dozens of ‘off-the-books’ 2.0 projects, where users are simply using off-the-shelf tools to get their work done more efficiently - using IM, using Basecamp, using Google Groups as a way to get things done without going through the approval process required by your IT organization. How you respond to those ‘wildcatters’ is probably the most important near-term 2.0 policy decision you’ll make as a CIO/CTO.

7. Irreversible decisions around 2.0 around topics such as brand, reputation, and corporate strategy can be delayed quite a while, and sometime forever.

Absolutely not. Once you let your brand out into the conversation, it’s out. Companies can’t both maintain rigorous control of company information and let it out on Youtube. The mix of what’s happening in the informal 2.0 sector and the formally controlled sector can be adjusted slowly, and you are best advised not to simply declare a free for all. But don’t believe that you can play both games and not have impact on the controlled brand, reputation, and strategy. You’re formally in the conversation - or you’re not.

8. The technology competence organizations have today are inadequate for moving to 2.0.

Not so much. The technology governance organizations have are inadequate for moving to 2.0.

9. The business side requires 2.0 competence as well.

This should have been #1 (and maybe #’s 2, 3, and 4). there is nothing more important than creating business readiness for 2.0. Other than as a means of technology delivery (agile vs. waterfall), all the 2.0 concepts have critical impacts on business, and it’s meaningless to talk about 2.0 without including the readiness of business to participate.

10. Start small, think big.

Absolutely. And more important, find a way to discover and embrace the things that your staff and customers are doing already without your involvement and approval.

That’s the key - it’s not likely that you’ll be able to execute a formal plan to move power out to users - you simply need to accept that they are going to start taking it, and you need to provision the tools for them to do it productively, and to create a management framework to allow you to be - in the words of Marine Col. Paul Van Riper - “In command and out of control.“