Enterprise 2.0 in the Trough of Disillusionment

(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:

Yuri’s post is a must read for the Enterprise 2.0 community.  Commenting on a few choice quotes:

“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.

Who defines your company’s social collaboration strategy?

KnowledgeInfusion.com has an interesting poll up on their site (snapshot taken 3/26/09):

KnowledgeFusion Poll

Go here to see latest results:
http://www.knowledgeinfusion.com/coe/poll.jspa?poll=1102#cf

The most effective social collaboration strategy will be flexible, not rigid. It will be able to evolve based on the usage patterns of the community.  A bottom-up driven strategy.  Not top-down and rigid, like what you would might expect from traditional thinking HR, Marketing, or IT.  So I think it’s interesting how the “Colleagues/Co-workers” choice is at the bottom of the list.   With social software you are talking about how people connect and communicate.  Doesn’t it make sense that the best strategy will be one that continuously adapts to the needs of the people in the community it serves?

HR will define the above-medium code of conduct. Marketing/Sales/Product Dev will benefit in myriad ways from the freer flow of ideas and knowledge.  IT will facilitate the needs of the community as effectively as they can by deploying and customizing tools.  But it’s the community of colleagues/co-workers who really need to define the strategy.  This is not a chicken-or-egg problem either.  It is a convergence process.  Deploy multiple tools. (The major vendors get this – Jive SBS, Lotus Connections, SocialText, etc. now offer platforms comprised of multiple social SW tools.)  Minimize governance and process overhead.  Trust your employees to follow HR’s code of conduct, and empower them to collaborate.  Then see where and how their usage patterns converge toward the most valuable tools and methods.  Expect the unexpected (especially at first). You won’t be able to predict some of the most valuable effects.  So don’t try to design your entire strategy from the get go.  Executives and middle management must also participate.  They should use the same tools to help keep the company’s business goals firmly in sight for all employees.  Embrace change.  Let your strategy coalesce – from the bottom up.

City Government 2.0 – Austin’s Opportunity

There has is a “healthy” online discussion among Austin netizens about the latest RFP and (retracted) contract award for the sorely needed update to the City of Austin website.  Links:  Omar Gallaga’s digital savant blog on Austin360,  Sarah Coppola’s statesman.com City Beat Blog.  I added the following comment to each of their blogs today:

I’m glad to see that the COA is delaying the vote on the site redesign.  I commend Omar for originally surfacing this story, and for sticking with the comment thread.  That this discussion is happening in the open is great.  How many other COA RFP-to-contract award processes face this much netizen light of day?

Ideally, the forum for a discussion like this should be hosted by the city (irony intended).  And, any online forums hosted by the city should also allow for reg’d participants to not just compose/comment, but also vote up other posts/comments too (Whitehouse.gov did this just today in their first online presidential town hall meeting – a watershed event in government 2.0).

I’m starting to enumerate functional requirements for the redesign now.  Where is the RFP?  Can anyone share a link to the original RFP?  I can’t readily find it (or much of anything) on the current COA site. (update: Omar has added a link to the original RFP at the end of his post)

One comment mentions that the RFP did not specifically require Plone/Zope as the platform.  Can anyone confirm this?  If true, then where is this requirement coming from?  As a tax paying Austinite though, I am very pleased that at least a Free/OSS platform strategy is in play.

I hope the current RFP (or the new one now that “the city’s new communications director and new chief information officer need more time to review options for the project”) will not be limited to functional requirements that facilitate business us usual.  It should also define requirements that open visibility into the business of the COA in new ways, allowing for online interaction and feedback from residents in ways that currently aren’t possible today.  As whitehouse.gov demonstrated today, net based social media is creating a whole new paradigm.

Heck – we are home to the most important new media/tech interactive conference in the world today (SXSWi).  Wouldn’t it be great if there was a panel discussion in next year’s SXSWi agenda like this?… “City Government 2.0: Come to this panel to learn how the City of Austin designed and implemented their widely acclaimed interactive city government web site.” …with the panel comprised of the our Mayor, the COA CIO, and leaders of the *AUSTIN BASED* firm that led the successful and widely emulated project.