(5/22 update: Hutch Carpenter nails the trend in an earlier post on his blog: “Enterprise 2.0 and the Trough of Disillusionment“.)
Yuri Alkin (@yurial) posted a spot-on analysis of the current state of Enterprise 2.0 at the FastForward Blog. As I read Yuri’s post it dawned on me that his assessment is a dead ringer for the 2nd and 3rd phases of The Gartner Group’s Hype Cycles. Although he didn’t specifically say it in his blog, Yuri’s analysis leads to the obvious conclusion that… enterprise 2.0 has transitioned past the Peak of Inflated Expectations and into the Trough of Disillusionment. I’m guessing that right now E2.0 is somewhere between the dotted lines below:
“More likely than not, you have your own example of a “now what?” story. As in “So we’ve deployed internal blogs and wikis. Now what?”
Yep. Lived it and breathed it. In fact, I get a chance to tell that story as a panelist at the E2.0 conference next month.
“E2.0 is still primarily a vendor space, dominated by ISVs selling software to businesses who haven’t really asked for it. It is simply not a demand-driven market. By contrast, just think of CRM or payroll software. You don’t need to convince businesses they need that.
For the most part I agree with Yuri on this one. I wish it was different. I see how the culturally transformative potential of e2.0 in the enterprise can lead to huge efficiencies in transfer and flow of knowledge. It will become a demand-driven market someday, when the tools evolve (and organizations evolve along with them) to the point where you can demonstrate and quantify the can’t-live-without value of frictionless knowledge flow that they enable.
“…in a Benjamin Button fashion, many customers – often encouraged by enthusiastic sellers – think about E2.0 backwards, starting with tools instead of concentrating on specific business problems.“
This quote gives me yet another opportunity to pitch the P.O.S.T method described by Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li in the groundswell. The “T” stands for Technology, and it’s last in the sequence for good reason. You gotta start with People, Objectives, and Strategy first. Try not to let an IT driven viewpoint be the tail that wags the dog. You might have to fight a few more battles. But in the long run I think you will be glad (as in measurable success) that you did.
“Real gold is not in the technologies of today. It’s not even in applying the best of breed E2.0 tools correctly. It’s in solutions of tomorrow, designed to solve hard business problems through people-connecting technologies.“
Here Yuri clearly alludes to the last two phases of the Hype Cycle: the “Slope of Enlightment”, and the “Plateau of Productivity”.
One additional observation. Yuri works for Microsoft, and of course they have offerings in the E2.0 space too. In the near term, He didn’t paint a very pretty picture of the market for their E2.0 offerings either. But maybe thats not a bad thing for MS. I recently sat down with a MOSS developer to get the technical overview of MOSS features, and what functions it provides that make it an E2.0 platform. After working with a whole spectrum of E2.0 oriented tools while at IBM, I have to say that what I saw of MOSS is not (yet) very impressive. But my point is not to evaluate MOSS as an E2.0 platform. My point is this: I think that the timing of the E2.0 Hype Cycle is working in Microsoft’s favor. MS’s E2.0 offerings will only improve. They could end up hitting the slope of enlightment at just the right time.
Rather than Gartner’s hypefilled hype cycle, perhaps we should step back to earlier sources for the same model – Geoffrey Moore perhaps? (almost 20 years old) Or Everett Rogers’ Diffusions of Innovation from 1962?
Same model, and not much improved through the magic of Gartner marketing spin.
Regardless of who we bow to in using the model though, it does actually bear out in the “real world” – the simple fact is that no “innovation” (or idea, concept, theory, etc.) instantly catalyzes the world. E2.0 has a technology component, to be sure, and it would be silly to ignore the technological impact.
Which is why I disagree with the POST model. Putting technology LAST in the methodology is ignoring the fact that technology ALREADY EXISTS in any business older than a day.
Quite often, I recommend to my clients that they DON’T BUY ANY MORE TECHNOLOGY for the business need they’ve brought me in to assist with. More than likely, they should throw some things out, or at the least, do integration (light-weight or heavy) to make what they’ve already bought/paid for USEFUL.
That doesn’t always make the software companies I’m advising all that happy, but in the end, if the buyer/user is not happy, that is only going to come back and bite you – and these days, an unhappy, vocal customer is DEATH to a business given the magnification of social networks and social media.
Yuri’s quote “Real gold is not in the technologies of today. It’s not even in applying the best of breed E2.0 tools correctly. It’s in solutions of tomorrow, designed to solve hard business problems through people-connecting technologies.” – wow, that is troubling.
So we should just wait until tomorrow, when the appropriate solutions finally arrive because of course none of the solutions today are suitable…
The solutions of tomorrow will be replaced by the solutions of the day after that. Why don’t we try addressing the problems of today NOW, by honestly assessing the business and technology aspects that are already in house NOW? Waiting until tomorrow sounds like the type of thinking that has destroyed the automotive industry, the steel industry, and many others. Very dangerous thinking.
I gave a presentation this week at the Front End of Innovation conference in Boston, specifically on Enterprise 2.0 and Innovation. Interesting questions, and people are both confused and intrigued in this topic.
There is a video clip (6 minutes of the 20 minute presentation) on YouTube at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUmogO7FomM
And full slides from the presentation at:
http://www.slideshare.net/dan.keldsen/do-you-have-the-strength-to-embrace-innovation-in-a-20-world
People, Culture, Technology – driven by business-need = the way to go.
Hi Dan – thanks for the impassioned comment. That quote from Yuri at the end… “Real gold is not in the technologies of today…” is where I connect the dots between how far behind the functionality curve Microsoft’s current e2.0 offerings are and where the trend is in the hype curve right now. Seems like nice timing for MS, while the upstart e2.0 ISVs out there have to buckle down, survive, and hasten the arrival of the slope of enlightment phase (…or whatever you want to call it).
Re “T”echnology being last… I don’t think the POST method says you must ignore technology until the end of the process. I think the purpose of this order is to set out priorities for an idealized strategy. It will be a rare case for any existing enterprise to define all of the “POS” before any “T” constraints are considered. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if most e2.0 initiatives start with the IT department in the drivers seat, already seeing everything through the filter of their existing technology/expertise investments. But even in that case it is still smart for them to try to be nimble – to look at the POS first to determine if their existing T is suitable, if they need to introduce new T, etc.
Isn’t this consistent with what you say in your fine presentation that you linked to on SlideShare? I quote slide #10…
…”Technology is only ONE part of what makes Enterprise 2.0 useful and relevant… (Secret Hint) Its not the most important part”
You nail the people factor in slide #33, then pound on culture and strategy. Nothing in this excellent deck starting spinning my techie propeller cap. This deck screams POS factors first. That is where you should start any E2.0 initiative, right?
Chris – Ah, didn’t quite read into your comment on MSFT being behind the curve – so we’re thinking alike there, for certain (hence the FUD – it’s not important until we enter the market and say it’s important).
On POST – in theory it should be modular, and approachable from any angle, but the danger of going for the pronounceable acronym is that, inadvertently or not, technology falls at the end of the process, as laid out in that fashion.
I agree that putting technology first, particularly choosing a solution AND THEN finding a real business problem it solves (cough, typical SharePoint deployments, and Notes before that, and not nearly the entire list of suspects), is a major WORST practice. (If only BEST practices multiplied as quickly as WORST.)
What I’m aiming to get across is that many vendors, integrators and consultants seem to assume that previous solutions will be ripped and replaced, or chucked into yet another silo. This is a root cause of the huge amount of wasted spend in B2B technology, IMHO.
When I suggest to buyers, whether in a business or IT role, that perhaps they don’t need to spend a single dime more on technology, given their business needs, well, that’s typically about the strangest thing they’ve ever heard, as most in this industry are there to sell them something, while I’m trying to help them solve their business problems with the most appropriate, targeted, cost-effective options.
All told, it looks as though you and I are on the same page, on multiple fronts.
We seem to be both reading into this that MSFT is signaling some activity (how soon? they typical telegraph about 3 years out, in the past) – which is definitely an interesting tidbit to watch.
The way in which methodologies are worded do, however, concern me, as it is all too easy to see how POST, for example, could lead people to ignore a good part of the problem until the end of the process. In an industry (to Yuri Alkin’s leading point) overrun with invented terminology, and particularly acronyms that are annoying to misleading, we need to keep an eye out to make sure we haven’t baffled people with our own cleverness.
Very interested in alternative takes – great discussion though, look forward to circling back with you.
Best,
Dan