Infovark

One of the stranger keynotes at the recent Enterprise 2.0 conference was given by Rishi Chandra, the Product Director for Google Enterprise. I expected the head of Google’s Enterprise division to spend his time talking about Google Docs, GTalk, Gmail for the enterprise, the recent launch of Google Sites, or any of the half dozen or so applications Google offers. Instead, he spent nearly all his time talking about the benefits of storage in the cloud.

Many attendees at the conference shrugged. They’d heard the cloud pitch from Google before. But the talk struck me as odd for a few reasons:

1. Storage in the cloud is an outsourcing play targeted at CIOs and IT department heads, but the Enterprise 2.0 conference is focused on bringing Web 2.0 tools to typical knowledge workers.
2. Storage in the cloud is all about outsourcing your datacenter. That’s great from a bottom-line cost reduction perspective, but Enterprise 2.0 is about the top line — making employees more productive.

Maybe Google’s working on something cool they can’t talk about yet. Or maybe Google doesn’t have a real Enterprise 2.0 story. Yet for some reason, Google decided to show up at the conference anyway, and talk about infrastructure.
Microsoft, IBM and Sun were all there, on hand to show off their social computing solutions. What’s up with Google?

One of the recurring themes at E2.0 Last week was the notion of Generational Adoption. It’s the idea that Baby Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y all had an innate relationship with various ways of working, and that these different work habits are a major factor in the adoption of new technology. Jay Hariani at the e2.oh blog has a nice wrap up of the generational adoption meme. Since then, Ross Mayfield, Jeff Nolan, and Larry Dignan have all chimed in, with various cases for and against.

I was lucky enough to share a drink last week with with Rob Salkowitz, Author of Generation Blend: Managing Across the Technology Age Gap, who was presenting at the E2.0 conference. I haven’t read Rob’s book yet, but In the wake of our conversation, I am definitely going to check it out. (Venkat’s Review over on RibbonFarm is also a good read).

The Millenials Are Coming is the new Y2K Bug

I have big problems with using the generational argument to drive adoption of Enterprise 2.0. It feels like another vendor-inspired bogeyman designed to convince companies to buy heaps of software they don’t need. (Install our compliance software or Sarbanes-Oxley will get you!)

The notion that the millennials are going to “demand” some kind of “Facebook” to do their work is just plain rubbish. Think about when you joined the workforce. What exactly did you demand?

When I first left school for the workforce, I wasn’t in a position to demand anything. It took me five years of working within the system before I realized which parts were broken. And it was only because I’d put in the time working within the system that I was trusted to actually influence things a bit.

Generational change happens gradually. There’s not going to be some giant “MySpace Revolution” where “The Kids” take over with their externally hosted collaborative tools. Instead, these people will join the workplace as wide-eyed and impressionable new starters, and they’ll do their best to work within the framework that they are given with the tools that are allocated to them. Then, slowly, their own ideas will become part of the way people work, including their favorite tools and technologies.

Sure, the generational issue is interesting from an anthropological perspective. It’s indicative of a lot of things, most notably progress in society. But as a call to arms for business to rush out and spend cash on some new-fangled social media tool for your enterprise, it leaves a lot to be desired.

(But hey, what would I know. I’m just a disgruntled Gen X’er who has no respect for authority, right?)

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…)

If all an organism needs to do is keep breathing and keep the heart beating, it doesn’t need a brain. Those functions are performed by the brain stem. They’re done autonomously, at a level below consciousness. The conscious brain is needed to manage environmental change.

Organizations function the same way. Most senior managers could step out of the office for an entire week without any detrimental effects, as long as the operations team kept rest of the company ticking. But when a company needs to react to a new competitor, a disrupted supply chain, or changing customer needs, it needs to use its brain. It needs to manage that change.

Change Management is not an implementation problem. Change Management is THE problem.