Research firm Gartner have published a report underlining what many in the Enterprise 2.0 field, and what the previous post referred to: your organisation will have Web 2.0 technologies in it, some for business and some not, whether you like it or not. This change will come from your current and next generation of workers who grew up with internet technologies and will expect to find it waiting for them. If not, they will move on or create their own to the consternation of your IT policies and HR officers.
Admittedly, that sounds dramatic. However, if you have juniors who are more adept at networking, real knowledge management and rapid turnaround times than your incumbents, you may find yourself with a hierarchical problem.
Vertigo
On that note, the research rings a bell with a favoured theme of mine: vertigo and the silo approach. Web 2.0 is as horizontal as you can get. I know vertical communities and vertical search sound sexy and practical and make easy Powerpoint slides, but reality is different. Information-seekers mill about your corporate website like indoor dogs on rainy day to get a feel, you can’t push them down silos.
Surprise! Investors, analysts, applicants, suppliers and journalists do the same. You would be a poor fool if you just took the official line, and didn’t probe a bit more.
If this current working generation is the multi-task generation, the ‘digital natives‘ must be the multi-source generation.
