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Enterprise 2.0: Confronting Social Media's Dirty Little Secret

I'm encouraged that the dirty little secret of Web 2.0 and social media technologies is finally being openly addressed by early adopters and vendors alike. At the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston, there's been frank discussion this week of the question average users have been whispering (so that their bosses don't hear them): Namely, what can this stuff do for me that's actually useful?

In truth, though, the answers to that question are not yet completely apparent. Here's the deal. At last year's conference, most denizens of the Web 2.0/Enterprise 2.0 community were consumed with evangelism issues. There was a need to raise the profile of wikis, collaborative tools, social-messaging platforms – all the stuff that early adopters were already down with, but average corporate users, not so much.

This year, we've passed through the familiarity hurdle. We've all been wiki'ed up and Twitterized. The problem is, those who don't have an innate feel for the technology, or whose jobs don't make amorphous, asynchronous communications networks useful, have been left out of the cold.

Nevertheless, it's permeated the mass subconscious that these tools are the wave of the future. (The fact that twenty-somethings eat this stuff for breakfast has only added to the angst of older folks seeking Web 2.0 guidance.)

Which is why the "usefulness" discussion is so important. As I said above, there are no firm answers get. But the chat/debate is helping the 2.0 community grope its way towards answers.

The most hopeful remark I heard was from an Enterprise 2.0 panelist who sees wikis moving away from their current role as a repository of corporate knowledge and becoming a "palette for applications." This would enable them to deliver on the largely unfulfilled promise of groupware, which is now 20 years old.

The common thread among enterprises is that everyone is seeking ways (and tools) to connect people in more collaborative ways. Perhaps that's because many companies have been stripped-mined into flatness, where today's employees have to cut through layers to get stuff done, because those layers just don't exist anymore. Or maybe it's because of the geographically dispersed nature of modern workteams.

It's clear we'd get to real Web 2.0-ness a lot faster if we weren't in the midst of an economic climate where investment in new technology is a lot tougher to get approved than we'd all like to admit. (Tougher still is the fact that it's impossible to quantify the ROI on a lot of this stuff.)

OK, in true Web 2.0 fashion, I have to run to an Enterprise 2.0 session, even though I've just skimmed the surface. What are your thoughts? Leave a comment below or e-mail me directly at alex@alexwolfe.net.

Better yet, follow me on Twitter: (@awolfe58)

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Alex Wolfe is editor-in-chief of InformationWeek.com.

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