I’m still processing all of the information from the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston. Due to some connectivity hiccups, Gordon and I weren’t able to document our reactions as the events unfolded. The good news is that we’ve both had some time to mull things over.

Vendors on Parade

Most of the conference was dominated by product vendors. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing for the two of us; we got to check out the competition. Most of the other attendees were hoping for insight into other aspects of Enterprise 2.0, though. You can do your vendor and product research anytime online.

I mentally classified the vendors at the booths downstairs into four categories:

1. The Old Guard. The usual enterprise software vendors, like OpenText, Microsoft, IBM, and EMC, touted their “2.0″ offerings. Their pitch was that E2.0 relies on a bunch of foundational technologies that are already present in the enterprise (and in their product stacks). Collaborative technologies are just another layer in your enterprise architecture. These vendors largely ignored the cultural and social implications of Enterprise 2.0.
2. The Barbarians at the Gates. The largest vendor contingent consisted of companies repackaging Web 2.0 tools for use within organizations. Some of them, like Socialtext, Atlassian, and Jive, had been around for a while. Others were young startups. Their pitch was that Web 2.0 had proven itself on the public web and could also be made to work inside organizations. While they embraced the cultural shifts, they didn’t address issues of legacy data or integration with existing systems and processes.
3. The Enablers. A handful of vendors showcased specific technologies. Veodia, for example, showed off their video streaming technology. Sun highlighted their series of embeddable social widgets. Their narrow focus made their pitches more cohesive, but it was hard to tell whether they expected to be bought by end users or OEM’d by the other vendors.
4. The Odd Ducks. At every conference, there’s always a few vendors that seem out of place. Often, they can tell you the most interesting stories. Sometimes, they leave you wondering what their marketing department was thinking. In the emerging Enterprise 2.0 market, there were quite a few ducks quacking, but I can’t say any of them made a real splash.

And Infovark? Where would we appear in this list? Well, considering our product isn’t for sale yet, we fall into the hidden fifth vendor category: The Silent Ones. We were there to listen and learn from the other attendees. We were one of the companies just doing market research, trying to gauge whether our solution and approach makes sense.

More Than a Trade Show

It’s unfortunate that nearly every conference devolves into a vendor showcase. In the case of Enterprise 2.0, I think it’s far too early for any vendor to claim that they have a solution. We haven’t finished defining the problem yet. Yes, Web 2.0 technology enables different communications paths and organizational structures, but what are these different channels good for? Are they more effective than traditional 1.0 approaches? My gut says that they are, but if we want to move beyond a tiny community of early adopters, we’ll need more than gut feelings to guide us.

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We arrived here in Boston tired, and pretty scruffy looking after the red-eye train from DC. But, we made it!

We just missed an interesting sounding opening presentation from Rob Carter from FedEx – it looks like FedEx are making extensive use of the web, facebook and blogs and wikis both within and external to their organization.

Sean Dennehy and Don Burke then presented a great seession on their work at the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA’s knowledge sharing ability has been greatly enhanced since they deployed their “intellipedia” – a mediawiki implementation that allows CIA staff to edit and share information freely, and without editorial regulation.

My favourite quote from Sean – “Wikis don’t work in theory – they only work in practice”

Other than removing the ability to make anonymous edits, not much was changed by the CIA when they launched intellipedia, last year.  They claim also to have a much higher contribution rate (Wikipedia has a markedly low percentage of users who actually edit it – often guessed at about 1-3%) – but they are still working with the early adopters – intellipedia hasn’t been wholly rolled out to the entire organization.

“A culture problem – not a technology problem”

Don mentioned that there was substantial resistance to their efforts to incorporate this crazy wiki thing into their business. Primary benefit comes from working at the broadest audience possible. The wiki approach also focuses more on topic than on organizational structure – it means that the point tends to be on content, rather than process. That’s a really good thing.

” But – I don’t have time to edit this intellipedia thing”

Don and Sean seem adamant that the best way to deal with this kind of response is for people to stop writing emails and documents, and start writing intellipedia articles instead. (I suspect that that’s going to be a friction point for them. People don’t like new ideas very much. )

All in all, this was a great session – intellipedia seems set to be a great success.

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I really got a kick out of Jevon’s Enterprise 2.0 Drag Queens post. Watching a company trying to be something that it’s not is a bit sad, but in a comical way. On the eve of the Enterprise 2.0 Conference, I thought it might be time to stop and think a bit about “Enterprise 2.0″, which is really quite a horrid name for something so important.

As corny as it may be, the thing that I really like about the label is the “2.0″. It sounds as though it’s a new release of the Enterprise. But-why do we need a new Enterprise? The old one still works, right?

Well, yeah. But also no. Things have changed. And the changes have happened subtly – to the foundations of the way we work.

If you take any department in your organization, you will find two common elements. These are Information Management, and Communication.

It doesn’t matter what department it is. HR, Finance, Operations, Marketing -all they are doing is storing and retrieving information, and selectively passing it on to people – customers, colleagues, and other organizations. ( I realise this is a pretty high-level abstraction, but stay with me for a while. The view’s really nice up here )

Most of the principles – the “best practices” around optimizing organizations deal explicitly with these two elements. That’s what’s kept management consultants getting paid so much for so long. That’s what brought us Business Process Management, and Automated Workflow, and Process Re-engineering. Structuring and refining information management and communication processes. That’s it.
(See – what good is a high level abstraction if you can’t make sweeping generalizations?)

But while we were busy with flowcharts and telephone systems, the fundamental assumptions of those two disciplines changed. And it was the internet that changed them.

The 1.0 Rules of Communication

1. The marketing department controlled all external perception of the enterprise
2. Internal Communication was always just internal

The 1.0 Rules of Information Management

1. Information only exists in one place at a time.
2. Access to information was readily controllable.

None of these things are true anymore. 

That’s why we need the 2.0. That’s why our tools need to change. The foundations that we built our organizations on are not the same.

(And perhaps that’s why it’s funny when the guys who have years of 1.0 experience behind them cram their burly legs into the silk stockings and the whip out the lipstick…)

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It’s a funny thing working for a “stealth” startup. There’s two very diametric forces at work. In one corner, you have the notion that you aren’t willing to share precisely what you’re working on with everyone until you’re sure that it’s ready. And in the other, the fact that as a young organization, you really want to engage with potential customers and partners already in the kind of space that you’re aiming to get to.

This kind of “Come Here – Go Away” paradox is pretty common in startups and their blogs (ours included).

But, after a bunch of long hours writing code, and consulting with designers, and doing other fairly insular activities, Dean and I have decided that we couldn’t possibly miss the big Enterprise 2.0 Conference. So, we’re dusting off our nice clothes, and emerging from the comfortable darkness of the Infovark Burrow to join everyone in Boston next week.

We’ll be in town Tuesday to Thursday – so if you happen to be able to make it, and you’d like to catch up and talk with us about Enterprise 2.0, the stuff we’re working on, the stuff you’re working on, (or any thing at all) — we would absolutely love to see you! You can leave us a comment here, find us on twitter, or via email at info@infovark.com.

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