Sunday, August 26, 2007
Web 2.0's Place in the Enterprise
The recent Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston served as a coming-out party, if you will, for all things Web 2.0. For many attendees, however, as well as those who followed the event on the countless blogs covering the conference, the term Web 2.0 has created as much confusion as hype. Still, the ideas and concepts that make up Web 2.0 offer enterprises real opportunities to improve collaboration and communication.
Before delving too much into the "whys" of Web 2.0, it's worth spending a few minutes discussing the "what." The basic concept of Web 2.0 is one of end-user empowerment; replacing a rigid set of standalone applications with a Web-based framework allowing end users to self-organize as they create, control and share content using the Web as the medium for communication. In effect, Web 2.0 brings the "Internet" architecture based on dumb network and smart endpoints to the application layer.
A key characteristic of Web 2.0 is leveraging social networks to aid in problem-solving and information management. Some of the more popular Web 2.0 applications include:
-Blogs, which allow individuals to easily post to an online journal, with comment systems as well as links between posts on different forums.
-Wikis, user-editable Web pages that came to prominence through sites such as Wikipedia , and which offer anyone the ability to easily create and edit a Web page.
-RSS (Really Simple Syndication), which takes information from sites such as wikis and blogs and pushes it out to end-users or other Web sites.
-Community tools such as social bookmarking and tagging, which let users quickly mark or find items of interest based on how others tag content.
We've all seen the hype around Web 2.0 in the past year, with "You" as Time magazine's 2006 "Person of the Year." We've seen the rise of end user-powered Web sites such as YouTube , MySpace , Del.ico.us, Digg, and Craigslist. Web sites such as Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) and most other retailers have aggressively moved to add social networking capabilities, enabling users to form their own communities, share feedback and comment on products and services. These social networks allow individuals to quickly tap the collective wisdom of groups for everything from picking the best TV to finding entertainment.
We've had the opportunity to interview approximately 100 end-user organizations for our most recent benchmark study on the subject. We found it difficult to ascertain any enterprise-wide consensus on attitudes toward Web 2.0, but we did uncover a few general trends:
Fear: Enterprise GG executives expressed strong concern over end users run amok as Web 2.0 culture permeates the enterprise. Many enterprise managers are concerned about the potential risks to the organization from bad publicity or data loss as a result of employees sharing information on blogs or other social networking sites. Enterprises also fear that their employees are using these sites for group collaboration and are operating outside the approved IT applications, meaning they aren't subject to enterprise policies governing compliance and information protection.
In some cases, enterprise IT managers simply don't understand Web 2.0 and fear its impact. News stories touting problems with sites such as MySpace contribute to the fear, uncertainty and doubt that often permeate discussions of Web 2.0.
Confusion: Marketers have caught on to the Web 2.0 phenomenon, in some cases branding all of their collaboration and communications tools part of Web 2.0, even though such tools may not be Web-based or even anything new. (Is Web conferencing or videoconferencing really Web 2.0?) Confusion spills into discussions of unified communications, which in turn is frequently confused with unified messaging. Often when we asked IT executives about their Web 2.0 applications, we heard about thin client services, Software as a Service products such as Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) , or Web-based application access powered by development frameworks such as Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML).
Organizational Obstacles: Web 2.0 shatters traditional IT boundaries around collaboration, communications, network infrastructure and applications. One company I interviewed has more than two dozen silos of IT departments, each charged with managing their own application or network service independent of one another.
More than half of the enterprises we interviewed are still struggling with integrating voice and data architecture and operations functions. Now along comes a completely new approach to application delivery, one that crosses most existing boundaries such as voice, messaging and collaboration, while also requiring integration with security and compliance plans.
I just rely on vendor XXX: About half the enterprises we interviewed had settled on a strategic vendor for communication and collaboration (mostly Cisco), IBM, Lotus, or Microsoft). As a result, their approach to adopting Web 2.0 applications is to deliver whatever platform their strategic vendor offered-e.g. Microsoft SharePoint, Lotus Domino/Notes/Quickr/Connections, or Cisco collaboration tools such as MeetingPlace. This approach is simple, and the enterprise can be assured that they are buying products which integrate into a unified framework, but it limits choice, blocking enterprises from evaluating best-of-breed products.
As a result of these challenges, enterprise IT shops are often reacting rather than leading on Web 2.0, trying to get a grip on applications and services brought into the enterprise by end users and business groups, rather than crafting an enterprise-wide strategy for Web 2.0 adoption.
We've been here before. Long before there was Web 2.0, employees introduced IM through public services such as AOL Instant Messenger, forcing companies to react to an application that end users wanted, but that the organization didn't provide. End users went out and got their own e-mail-enabled mobile devices before the BlackBerry became standard, and in some cases, individuals or workgroups bought their own PCs back when mainframes were still the norm.
We're seeing this same phenomenon again as individual workgroups bring blogs and wikis into the enterprise, in some cases subscribing on their own to Web-based services, since enterprise-provided options simply don't exist. Once again, IT shops are straggling to play catch-up.
So where do we stand today? In our benchmark, we found that about 18 percent of enterprises were using blogs, 32 percent used wikis and 23 percent had begun to deploy RSS as a way of managing information flows throughout the organization.
These numbers are impressive for new technology, but they don't tell the whole story. When we dug deeper, we found adoption wasn't widespread throughout the organization; rather, in most cases individual workgroups were using these tools for both internal and external collaboration. In some cases, IT had little knowledge or control. Business units were taking it upon themselves to obtain the tools they needed to solve their communications and collaboration challenges, without waiting for IT to create a strategy.
This creates a recipe for chaos. The vision of end users freed from the shackles of corporate IT control, able to use whatever tools they like in whatever fashion they want may sound like nirvana to some Web 2.0 evangelizers. However, enterprises face very real security and compliance requirements. Mandates such as Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA require careful management and control throughout the organization.
More importantly, IT departments that fail to adequately address Web 2.0 are at the mercy of their users. Workgroups with technically savvy individuals will benefit, but workgroups or business units without a grasp of Web 2.0 will never know what they are missing, and will suffer against competitors who are able to leverage Web 2.0 tools to improve business processes, thus reducing costs and adding to the bottom line.
IT shops owe it to their corporations to get up to speed on the concepts, tools and opportunities of Web 2.0. The first step is establishing the right IT organization; we recommend, at minimum, a high-level collaboration and communication architecture team to coordinate silos, to work toward a common set of interoperable applications.
Beyond organizational considerations, enterprises should look for specific processes that can benefit from Web 2.0. These typically involve functions that require close coordination between distributed workers, within the enterprise as well as with external partners. Look for ways to shorten project times, improve project efficiency and limit roadblocks to communications.
Finally, organizations should broaden their product horizons beyond a small set of vendors. Pay attention to the start-ups that are often the thought leaders in the Web 2.0 space: companies such as Attensa, NewsGator, KnowNow, SixApart, SocialText and Traction Software. You owe it to yourself and your organization to position your IT shop to be a proactive partner in taking advantage of Web 2.0 to improve your organization.
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Before delving too much into the "whys" of Web 2.0, it's worth spending a few minutes discussing the "what." The basic concept of Web 2.0 is one of end-user empowerment; replacing a rigid set of standalone applications with a Web-based framework allowing end users to self-organize as they create, control and share content using the Web as the medium for communication. In effect, Web 2.0 brings the "Internet" architecture based on dumb network and smart endpoints to the application layer.
A key characteristic of Web 2.0 is leveraging social networks to aid in problem-solving and information management. Some of the more popular Web 2.0 applications include:
-Blogs, which allow individuals to easily post to an online journal, with comment systems as well as links between posts on different forums.
-Wikis, user-editable Web pages that came to prominence through sites such as Wikipedia , and which offer anyone the ability to easily create and edit a Web page.
-RSS (Really Simple Syndication), which takes information from sites such as wikis and blogs and pushes it out to end-users or other Web sites.
-Community tools such as social bookmarking and tagging, which let users quickly mark or find items of interest based on how others tag content.
We've all seen the hype around Web 2.0 in the past year, with "You" as Time magazine's 2006 "Person of the Year." We've seen the rise of end user-powered Web sites such as YouTube , MySpace , Del.ico.us, Digg, and Craigslist. Web sites such as Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) and most other retailers have aggressively moved to add social networking capabilities, enabling users to form their own communities, share feedback and comment on products and services. These social networks allow individuals to quickly tap the collective wisdom of groups for everything from picking the best TV to finding entertainment.
We've had the opportunity to interview approximately 100 end-user organizations for our most recent benchmark study on the subject. We found it difficult to ascertain any enterprise-wide consensus on attitudes toward Web 2.0, but we did uncover a few general trends:
Fear: Enterprise GG executives expressed strong concern over end users run amok as Web 2.0 culture permeates the enterprise. Many enterprise managers are concerned about the potential risks to the organization from bad publicity or data loss as a result of employees sharing information on blogs or other social networking sites. Enterprises also fear that their employees are using these sites for group collaboration and are operating outside the approved IT applications, meaning they aren't subject to enterprise policies governing compliance and information protection.
In some cases, enterprise IT managers simply don't understand Web 2.0 and fear its impact. News stories touting problems with sites such as MySpace contribute to the fear, uncertainty and doubt that often permeate discussions of Web 2.0.
Confusion: Marketers have caught on to the Web 2.0 phenomenon, in some cases branding all of their collaboration and communications tools part of Web 2.0, even though such tools may not be Web-based or even anything new. (Is Web conferencing or videoconferencing really Web 2.0?) Confusion spills into discussions of unified communications, which in turn is frequently confused with unified messaging. Often when we asked IT executives about their Web 2.0 applications, we heard about thin client services, Software as a Service products such as Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) , or Web-based application access powered by development frameworks such as Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML).
Organizational Obstacles: Web 2.0 shatters traditional IT boundaries around collaboration, communications, network infrastructure and applications. One company I interviewed has more than two dozen silos of IT departments, each charged with managing their own application or network service independent of one another.
More than half of the enterprises we interviewed are still struggling with integrating voice and data architecture and operations functions. Now along comes a completely new approach to application delivery, one that crosses most existing boundaries such as voice, messaging and collaboration, while also requiring integration with security and compliance plans.
I just rely on vendor XXX: About half the enterprises we interviewed had settled on a strategic vendor for communication and collaboration (mostly Cisco), IBM, Lotus, or Microsoft). As a result, their approach to adopting Web 2.0 applications is to deliver whatever platform their strategic vendor offered-e.g. Microsoft SharePoint, Lotus Domino/Notes/Quickr/Connections, or Cisco collaboration tools such as MeetingPlace. This approach is simple, and the enterprise can be assured that they are buying products which integrate into a unified framework, but it limits choice, blocking enterprises from evaluating best-of-breed products.
As a result of these challenges, enterprise IT shops are often reacting rather than leading on Web 2.0, trying to get a grip on applications and services brought into the enterprise by end users and business groups, rather than crafting an enterprise-wide strategy for Web 2.0 adoption.
We've been here before. Long before there was Web 2.0, employees introduced IM through public services such as AOL Instant Messenger, forcing companies to react to an application that end users wanted, but that the organization didn't provide. End users went out and got their own e-mail-enabled mobile devices before the BlackBerry became standard, and in some cases, individuals or workgroups bought their own PCs back when mainframes were still the norm.
We're seeing this same phenomenon again as individual workgroups bring blogs and wikis into the enterprise, in some cases subscribing on their own to Web-based services, since enterprise-provided options simply don't exist. Once again, IT shops are straggling to play catch-up.
So where do we stand today? In our benchmark, we found that about 18 percent of enterprises were using blogs, 32 percent used wikis and 23 percent had begun to deploy RSS as a way of managing information flows throughout the organization.
These numbers are impressive for new technology, but they don't tell the whole story. When we dug deeper, we found adoption wasn't widespread throughout the organization; rather, in most cases individual workgroups were using these tools for both internal and external collaboration. In some cases, IT had little knowledge or control. Business units were taking it upon themselves to obtain the tools they needed to solve their communications and collaboration challenges, without waiting for IT to create a strategy.
This creates a recipe for chaos. The vision of end users freed from the shackles of corporate IT control, able to use whatever tools they like in whatever fashion they want may sound like nirvana to some Web 2.0 evangelizers. However, enterprises face very real security and compliance requirements. Mandates such as Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA require careful management and control throughout the organization.
More importantly, IT departments that fail to adequately address Web 2.0 are at the mercy of their users. Workgroups with technically savvy individuals will benefit, but workgroups or business units without a grasp of Web 2.0 will never know what they are missing, and will suffer against competitors who are able to leverage Web 2.0 tools to improve business processes, thus reducing costs and adding to the bottom line.
IT shops owe it to their corporations to get up to speed on the concepts, tools and opportunities of Web 2.0. The first step is establishing the right IT organization; we recommend, at minimum, a high-level collaboration and communication architecture team to coordinate silos, to work toward a common set of interoperable applications.
Beyond organizational considerations, enterprises should look for specific processes that can benefit from Web 2.0. These typically involve functions that require close coordination between distributed workers, within the enterprise as well as with external partners. Look for ways to shorten project times, improve project efficiency and limit roadblocks to communications.
Finally, organizations should broaden their product horizons beyond a small set of vendors. Pay attention to the start-ups that are often the thought leaders in the Web 2.0 space: companies such as Attensa, NewsGator, KnowNow, SixApart, SocialText and Traction Software. You owe it to yourself and your organization to position your IT shop to be a proactive partner in taking advantage of Web 2.0 to improve your organization.
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