Last week, I had a really interesting and enjoyable chat with an ex-colleague of mine about Enterprise 2.0 and one of the comments he made that really struck me was that Web 2.0 is an attitude. Well, we all know that. The changing face of Gen Y and the advent of facebook and youtube has changed it all. However, he went on to give an example of web 2.0 as an attitude.
There are “Pay what you want” restaurants around town and I have personally been to one. The one listed on the link believes that customers are paying 20% above the original price and the one that I have been to in Singapore gives all its proceeds to a Indian dance school just next door and the dance school is HUGE!
So the concept is simple. You and your mates grab lunch/dinner/food at the restaurant and depending on what you feel like, you pay what you want. In Singapore, where food is very cheap and an average decent dinner in a similar type restaurant would set you back approx $15, however, because I did not know how much to give and because its for charity as well, I gave $40. They have clearly made a profit from this and I have helped the kids next door learning how to dance for free.
The owners of the restaurant clearly practices some traits of web 2.0 specifically in the trust area. Its business and you allow people to give what they want. They run a risk of people paying too little. If a family of four paid 10 cents for the dinner, they would have alot of catching up just to break even. This is pure trust that people will pay what they feel.
I totally agree that Web 2.0 is an attitude but it doesn’t mean that we need technology to bring this idea forward. Well, this is alittle ironic coz Web 2.0 is about the new generation of the web and its all about technology but you get what I mean – I do not have a name for this changing attitude. This is a changing attitude in the world and we must understand how this will impact all aspects of life and business.
This talk by Barry Schwartz is excellent! I absolutely enjoyed this.
Barry Schwartz makes a passionate call for “practical wisdom” as an antidote to a society gone mad with bureaucracy. He argues powerfully that rules often fail us, incentives often backfire, and practical, everyday wisdom will help rebuild our world.
BuzzGain is an online service for discovering and engaging with the people who will help your business thrive in today’s social economy – where attention is a precious commodity. It empowers businesses to identify the previously hidden communities who are actively defining and shaping its future, including blogs, Flickr, youtube, Twitter, and traditional media. (excerpt from here)
Well, people have been doing this for ages and now there is an integrated tool to monitor all the buzz from multiple locations. Pretty cool. (Thanks Jeremy for the Delicious link)
Okie to test if it really works, let’s see if BuzzGain would post a comment here. =)
The definition and coverage of Web 2.0 has been rather broad and loosely used by many. Sometimes, I get confused with my thoughts on Web 2.0. The amount of terms that are being used is plentiful and sometimes these terms do not have a clear definition. The basic idea of web 2.0 is about social network and collaboration. However, in different settings, different approaches are taken thus different outcomes are achieved. I hope to define some of these terms in a clearer way.
The key ideas behind C2C web 2.0 is all about social networking, for example in the case of facebook. To a large degree there are direct user contribution to Wikipedia and Linux where people consciously contribute and add to the body of knowledge within these networks. There are also alot of sharing of information through tools like Slideshare, YouTube and GoogleDocs. These tools allow people to collaborate and/or contribute for their individual purposes.
In general, consumer to consumer is aimed at connecting people with the same friends, same cause or same interest. Collective intelligence is a very strong outcome of such forms of social networking. In many cases, C2C Web 2.0 could be just for leisure purposes.
2) Business to Consumer (B2C) Web 2.0
In B2C Web 2.0, there are some really famous case studies like Lego, Procter and Gamble’s Connect and Develop and GoldCorp. Read these case studies for a better understanding of B2C Web 2.0.
These kinds of Web 2.0 is really getting consumers to contribute and share their knowledge, expertise and/or feelings towards their products or services for the organisation. The organisation can choose to compensate their contributors with a cash reward or not.
3) Consumer to Business (C2B) Web 2.0
There are also many forums out there that helps people solve their issues for any organisation. For example, Whirlpool is a telecommunication forum for Australians where consumers help consumers solve problems that they have with Telco companies. This is a tricky situation as in some instances, problems can be solved using free contribution from users however, it might go the other way where people start ranting and saying bad stuff about the organisation.
4) Business to Business (B2B) Web 2.0
B2B web 2.0 is about how two different and separate organisations can collaborate and share sensitive information about each other for their own specific benefits. For example, in a supply chain, organisations can tightly integrate any two or more organisations together through an online platform and share information not only about their inventory status or production output but also information about key staff, communicate via a communal platform on issues, progress, updates and anything in between.
5) Enterprise 2.0 (Internal Business Web 2.0)
This is all about the internal social networking and collaboration within the organisation. Tools like Jive’s Clearspace, SocialText and Telligent have generally focused on this requirement from organisations.
Web 2.0 within organisations require more governance and control as compared to consumer Web 2.0. The data that is being exchange could also be generally more sensitive and holds some commercial value. Many of such implementations are also done at a global level where there are different teams working on different things and they require some kind of workspace for them to operate in (think of a virtual team). These are just some of the functionality that is not available in consumer Web 2.0.
Consumer web 2.0 is purely voluntary. Users choose to put up what they want and choose what they want to do. Due to the sheer amount of people on the net contributing, sharing and collaborating, one or two less people who are not willing to join the community does not really hurt the community. However, in an Enterprise 2.0 environment, there is generally a limited amount of resources available and organisations need to leverage these resources as much as possible and the more people contribute and share information, the more successful the platform is. Change management is key to the success.
I hope everything that Obama said will come through. Using technology as a key enabler for this strategies and policies will ensure things can get in a more streamlined manner.
I am sure at your school, workplace or even personal life, there is bound to be someone you have met who is “smart ass”. Someone who thinks that they are smart and makes stupid senseless comments and try to argue that its logical and is generally very loud.
Well I have a problem with smart ass on my Enterprise 2.0 implementation. A very small portion of the team is wreaking and changing stuff they shouldn’t be changing. Web 2.0 is all about freeform and giving the people the power to edit but now some small number of people is wreaking the platform!
What should I do? How can I stop them? Educate them? Fire them? Tell them off? Or constantly change the stuff they change back to the original? Should I be nice or be evil?
I have been trying to understand the different types of people who collaborate. Interesting enough, from my professional work in setting up collaboration systems, I can see that there are 1) some people who are extremely active collaborating for a short period of time and disappear “forever”, 2) there are another kind that are somewhat active and contributes just a little and 3) there are the ones who always contribute and collaborate.
Using the above three kinds of people I would like to propose that for 1) they are the people who are faced with external pressures / work requirement forcing conformity. They are somewhat forced to collaborate and since the boss says so and the performance review is at stake, therefore better “wake up” and get cracking (collaborating and contributing). Once the pressure and work requirement is gone, then contribution stops.
2) There people are uncertain about the whole idea of collaboration. They see successful peers climbing up the corporate ladder through sharing innovative ideas and producing good work on collaboration but not sure where to start or what to say. They contribute aliittle once in a while and are trying to mimic successful peers.
3) These people share and collaborate heaps. They do it as they are professional and have shared values with others in the network. Its simple, they believe in it, knows how it works and are willing to share. They are the “champions” of the system.
What I find really interesting after reading this is that I can really see how this works in my daily work. Every so often, I will get a question at work which I can’t answer and right away, I will access my knowledge repository – the all powerful Wiki and find something that would help me solve my question. That is part of BPM modeling for the organisation.
I had an extremely interesting conversation recently. We were working on a project and we are using a collaborative tool to facilitate communication, ideas and the final deliverable. The client has an input into this tool as well and everyone is really happy. Information was flowing and version control is keeping multiple emails throughout the day at bay. All good.
So I spoke to a client baby boomer who is also someone more senior than me and I said this “what did you think of [my work], could you please comment on it?” He said sure, let’s grab a room. I was pretty stunned. Why do you need a room? Well being the junior one, I followed suit and had a brief chat about my deliverable. The conversation led on to the pantry and we were discussing what does “commenting” means. To me, its a constant feedback and a constant learning session. To me, a comment is a comment.
A written note intended as an explanation, illustration, or criticism of a passage in a book or other writing; an annotation.
A comment doesn’t have to be right or wrong. It can be another perspective to the same problem. It can also be throwing ideas around or just a simple message. However to my baby boomer colleague, a comment is a review session. Something more formal, something that requires a room and something that has a structure. Please do not get me wrong. I am not saying that he is wrong. In fact, he is absolutely correct.
Generation X / Y has a different view of the word comment and it really shows the difference in the approach to solve problems at work. Attitudes have changed and no one is right or wrong.
G'day, Sean here. I am a senior consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers and also a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne and my proposed thesis title is "Implementation of Enterprise 2.0 and its Value in Organizations"
This blog is dedicated to topics surrounding Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Collaboration, and IT strategies for organizations with the aim of increasing efficiency, increasing profits and reducing costs. Hope you enjoy this blog.
Disclaimer: The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent my employer's and/or University of Melbourne's positions, strategies or opinions. I have not been compensated in any way for the content.
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