Enterprise 2.0: Big or Little?

Here's an interesting post from Tom Davenport (Harvard Business Online) about Enterprise 2.0. Tom's stance is that E2.0 will be the next "little" thing rather than the next "big" thing. He says:

Enterprise 2.0 software and the Internet won't make organizational hierarchy and politics go away. They won't make the ideas of the front-line worker in corporations as influential as those of the CEO. Most of the barriers that prevent knowledge from flowing freely in organizations – power differentials, lack of trust, missing incentives, unsupportive cultures, and the general busyness of employees today – won't be addressed or substantially changed by technology alone.

There's certainly much truth to what he says and I love a crusty, cynical stance as much as any other curmudgeon. But I think Tom is missing the long term here. Of course the front line worker won't be as influential as the CEO is, he/she is not paid to be. They have different informational needs for different decision scopes and they communicate and collaborate with different teams.

In my opinion, E2.0 is about empowering those teams and to that end it looks pretty compelling. To assume it's the magic bullet for business is to fall prey to marketing.

Is E2.0 the next "big" thing or "little" thing? Only time will tell but I'm hoping that it's at least the next "medium" thing.

Stifling Innovation, or Moving it Somewhere Else?

Interesting article at ZD Net about how CIO's are so focused on "keeping the lights on" that innovation at the tech level suffers.

Lack of innovation can be a potential catch-22 as we downsize FTE counts and Lean out processes. These efforts can vastly reduce available tech time for what I call the Triple-R's: Reflection, Research and Refinement.

Of course, business strategy and requirements ultimately drive the direction of IT but without innovation, the IT effort will ultimately atrophy.

I suspect that if techs no longer have time at the workplace to innovate, the dedicated ones will find time away from work to do so anyway. To paraphrase Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park: Innovation finds a way.

I also expect that these moonlighters might be easily stolen by the competition if they don't feel adequately rewarded for their efforts.