Down To Business: 2.0 Mania: The Line Between Pragmatist And Naysayer

We've all experienced the type-- the self-styled devil's advocate who takes pride in derailing otherwise constructive business discussions by positing the contrarian point of view. The more intellectually deep of the lot can rise to media prominence. Think of Nicholas Carr and the mileage he got out of his "IT Doesn't Matter" thesis.

More recently we've seen the emergence of self-proclaimed "pragmatic killjoy" Tom Davenport. The Babson College professor is spreading the word (mostly in blogs, ironically) that the Enterprise 2.0 movement--companies leveraging Web tools such as blogs, wikis, mashups, social networks, search, and unified communications for competitive advantage--is only so much drivel.

"Blogs are fun to read and socially interesting and perhaps useful," Davenport allowed in a debate last week with Harvard's Andrew McAfee at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston. "But I have yet to see any major example of how capitalist organizations make more money because of Enterprise 2.0 or any example of corporate culture being transformed by Enterprise 2.0."

Besides the fact that Enterprise 2.0 is a tad more sophisticated than blogging, Davenport misses the bigger point: When we make it much easier for people to share information and ideas, within project teams and across departmental and even company borders, stuff just gets done faster and better. You don't need to punch numbers into an ROI calculator to see that, says Motorola VP Toby Redshaw, who says Web 2.0-style collaboration at the company is now a way of work for tens of thousands of employees.

Davenport thinks the 2.0 technology--all the blogs and wikis and mashups and newfangled workflow apps--is overkill. Why not just put up a suggestion box to learn what's on employees' minds?

Cute. And who needs computers when a typewriter and adding machine will do, databases when we have filing cabinets, instant messaging when we can make a phone call or shout over the cubicle wall?

I can't come down on Davenport too hard. This column has had its own doubts about 2.0 mania, and InformationWeek regularly knocks the conventional industry wisdom down a few pegs. But just because a new information technology doesn't have a hermitically sealed ROI, bulletproof security, and buttoned-down governance doesn't mean it should be dismissed as trivial--by the punditry or your IT organization.

We're going through our own transformation here at InformationWeek. I'll resist labeling it IW 2.0; as a 34-year-old brand, we're on a double-digit version by now. But this one's big.

For starters, we're bringing more peer-based content to our Web, print, and event products. To provide you with deep technology analysis from the IT professional's perspective--"For IT, By IT"--10 editors are joining InformationWeek from Network Computing, covering everything from network access control to service-oriented architecture. In terms of strategic content from the CXO's perspective--"For CIOs, By CIOs"--we'll be weaving in more analyses from leading business technology professionals and management visionaries. (For more on recent changes at InformationWeek and elsewhere at CMP Technology, visit "CMP Technology Strengthens Its Market-Leading Brands and Increases Focus on Next-Generation Media".)

We also want to stimulate a peer discussion among you, our readers, with new forum software attached to all blogs and articles on InformationWeek.com and a soon-to-be-relaunched NWC.com. As our media business shifts more to the Web, we will be adding more standalone blogs and interactive research tools as well.

But the core of InformationWeek isn't changing. Our writers and editors will continue to get inside the most important issues of the day, to help you frame and define your business technology objectives. Please share your thoughts with us at the e-mail address below.

Rob Preston,
VP/Editor In Chief
[email protected]

To find out more about Rob Preston, please visit his page.