Infovark

There’s a change blowing through the dusty confines of enterprise software. Even establishment figures such as Bill Gates and Robert Scoble have begun criticizing it. Then half the tech blogosphere joined in. The alternative appears to be “Enterprise 2.0″, but what does that really mean? It’s time for us to have a go at defining this nebulous and controversial term.

Oh, Please…

Lots of people are uncomfortable with the phrase Enterprise 2.0. (The wikipedians are in a state of constant merge/don’t merge.) For the progressive and hip, appending the “2.0″ to anything somehow makes it fresh and trendy and interesting again. I understand that. To the more pragmatic and cautious among us, however, it sounds like an over-inflated and hype-laden marketing fad. We want to avoid making big promises and then looking stupid later. Should we find another label?

Most of the complaints stem from the fact that both parts of the term are hard to define. I’ve written so much code lately, I immediately thought of it as an array:

String[] TheProblem = “Enterprise 2.0″.Split(’ ‘);

TheProblem[0] - Defining “Enterprise”

Dean and I currently use this as our working definition: An enterprise is a group formed to work on a task that is too big for one person to accomplish alone.

To us, it doesn’t matter if you are two people or 20,000; As soon as you find that you need to add a second person to get whatever it is done, your effort just became an enterprise. And no matter the size, a bunch of people gathered together without a job to do is definitely not an enterprise. (It might be a Facebook or Myspace, though.)

Both parts are necessary: You must have multiple people working toward a goal to qualify as an enterprise. If you’ve got those things, you’re the target market for the tools emerging under the Enterprise 2.0 banner.

TheProblem[1] - Defining “2.0″

When television broadcasts first started, people weren’t quite sure what to make of them. The new technology made it possible to beam entertainment into people’s houses, and so the broadcasters turned to existing sources of entertainment — theatre and radio. During The Golden Age of Television (1949-61), the most popular programs were adapted radio plays or live “telecasts” of Shakespeare plays and the ballet. They simply took old media and repackaged it in a new form.

A second wave of innovation occurred as people became more comfortable with television. They began experimenting with the new medium, trying different approaches to producing and delivering the content. Television programming branched out, fueled by advertising and new business models, and changing personal preferences. Existing genres spawned entirely new sub-genres and whole new forms of entertainment appeared.

The Internet has gone through a similar transition, in what Tim O’Reilly famously termed “Web 2.0“. This is the point where the Internet changed from being a publishing medium to an interactive platform. Like it or not, we all add content to the Internet now, not just companies, scientists and scholars. Just as with television, this new medium offers us new and different opportunities. Things like User Generated Content (Happy Birthday, Wikipedia!) are hallmarks of Web 2.0.

Back to our definition: The “2.0″ bit is about leveraging Web 2.0 tools for work. It’s about applying some of the lessons from the public Internet space to the smaller, private confines of organizations. Not all of the Web 2.0 concepts will make the jump to the “small cloud”. Some will be more valuable than others. As with all software, actual mileage may vary.

TheProblem.Join();

So there it is: Enterprise 2.0. If it helps, think of it as “Enterprise Web 2.0″.

As to this notion that Enterprise 2.0 doesn’t exist because there is no market, I call shenanigans. Businesspeople have spent money on trying to improve their organizations in the past. They will continue to do so. If Web 2.0 tools provide value — and we believe they do — they will start to permeate the organization, regardless of what you call them.

And to those who say “It’s just marketing hype“, well, is that so bad? Enterprise Software 1.0 is seen as boring, complex, and hard to use. It has a dreadful reputation among users, consultants and developers alike. Perhaps encouraging people to expect more from their enterprise software will drive us all to meet those expectations.