E2.0 The State of the Meme

Andrew McAfee presented the state of Enterprise 2.0 in a report card format.

Awareness: A. Mainstream press is starting to catch on. It is the children of senior executives who are doing the most to push awareness. They are looking over the kid's shoulders trying to figure out what the Web2.0 things do.

Social software is powered by the network. A word document can live on its own. Facebook only works because it is connected to other users. Network effects mean that more users create an exponential increase in the value.

Allow freeform authoring and not force a lot of required fields on them. We do not know what people know. Let them put the information together in the way that works for them. Let the users generate the metadata as a byproduct of their regular work. Let them organize their information their way. Structure emerges from the initial freeform and folksonomy structure. Their is a natural order to things.

Technologies: A- The Enterprise 2.0 toolkit is growing and making excellent progress. There is a rapid proliferation of technologies right now. (There is a question of what companies will survive.) There is a mix of startups and incumbent companies. Enterprise needs are being addressed in particular security and compliance. You need to be careful about feature creep. Keep the system simple and it will more likely get adopted.

The challenge is how to get people out of email. All knowledge workers use email.

Communicating Results: C
How to we show the decision-makers the positive impact of E2.0? There are only a few case studies and success stories. He senses that the decision-makers are willing, but want some verifiable or measurable success.

He proposes a repository of E2.0 efforts, with disclosure rules about the information being posted. He volunteered to help organize and participate in the development and governance of the repository. This would help E2.0 evangelists make their case.

He has changed his opinion about crowds. He previously thought the IQ of a crowd is less that the IQ of the dumbest member. He now thinks it is a multiple of the IQ of the smartest member. He has come to realize that blog is not a teenager's online diary.

Professor McAfee appears to have emerged unscarred from his E2.0 throwdown with Tom Davenport.