Filed under: Collaboration and social, Digital workplace
A little while back I wrote an entry on enterprise 2.0, characterising the conflict between the libertarians and the corporate suits (noting the deliberate stereotyping). To quote:
On one side we have what I would call the “libertarians”, the body-and-soul evangelists of enterprise 2.0 technologies and approaches. While not all speaking with the one voice, there is a common theme of “get out of the way and let it happen”. In other words, encourage the release of enterprise 2.0 technologies into an organisation, let staff find their own uses for it, and information management problems will start to melt away.
On the other side, you have the “corporate suits”. Mostly driven from an IT, IM or KM perspective, there is typically a focus on enterprise content management (ECM), and the general adoption of “enterprise” solutions. This includes products that have been in the market for some time, such as web content management systems, document management systems, records management systems, and the like.
The purpose of the post was to argue for the need to find a middle ground between the two extremes, recognising that both are wrong. In this piece I’d like to explore that further, by asking: what do we get if we take the best of both worlds?
The idea is to move the debate beyond black-and-white, towards exploring how we make all this work in practice, how we avoid the pitfalls and maximise the benefits. To that end, here are my lists of what I would take from each approach, and what is currently offered by neither…
Best of the libertarian approach
- support for a heterogeneous mix of tools within the organisation
- ability for individuals to select tools to fit their specific needs
- adoption of solutions driven by local needs
- inherent flexibility in the use of tools
- driven by a focus on innovation
- support for experimentation in both technology and approaches
- ability of individuals to tailor, configure and integrate solutions
- capability for individuals to contribute, and not just consume
- explicit support for collaboration and other social effects
- endorsement for both internally and externally hosted solutions
- use of low-cost, low-footprint solutions that can be rapidly deployed
- use of modern web standards and platforms
- focus on “flows” rather than “stocks”
Best of the corporate suits approach
- corporately supported platforms
- ability to deploy onto corporate servers
- dedicated IT support
- backup and other core IT services
- consideration of security and compliance issues
- recognition as part of corporate strategy
- senior management support and endorsement
- centrally allocated budget
- single sign-on across applications
- integration with core enterprise solutions, such as HR and finance
- specific projects to deploy solutions, where needed
- longer-term strategies
Currently offered by neither
- overall owner of enterprise 2.0 approaches, beyond the technology platforms
- dedicated individual or team playing an internal mentoring role
- development of best practice guides, how-to manuals, tips and other resources
- focus on building expertise and knowledge within the organisation
- capture and communication of local successes and failures
- well-established community of practice supporting enterprise 2.0 approaches
- collaboration with other organisations to share knowledge
- high standard of usability and accessibility across all solutions
- clear vision of the future of enterprise work practice
- singular focus on resolving business problems and meeting needs