Sunday, February 1, 2009

Professionals and Web 2.0

CCH gathered some great information on "professionals" using Web 2.0: Professionals and Web 2.0 (.pdf).

They interviewed 229 professionals within organizations across the Asia-Pacific region. The report addresses the use of wikis, blogs, social networks, and RSS in Australia, New Zealand and Asia. The respondents consisted of professionals in tax & accounting, legal, HR and business. Most of them were employed by orgainzation with over 200 employees. the report indicates taht web 2.0 is becoming a way for you to start research and keep up with developments in your industry.
Web 2.0 is rapidly changing the landscape of professional information, with 43.7% of professionals using Web 2.0 tools at least once a week. While results show there is some reluctance for many organisations to adopt Web 2.0 before value can be established, a high percentage of ad-hoc use (at least 25.8%) is occurring due to the accessibility and functionality of the tools. This suggests Web 2.0 applications have gained a significant share of time spent online. We are increasingly using these tools to search, communicate and contribute to the web in both a personal and professional context.
Some highlights from the report:
  • 33% of the respondents in the legal field said they used a wiki for professional purposes at least once a week.
  • 35% of the respondents in the legal field use a blog for professional use at least once a week.
  • 20% of the respondents in the legal field use a social network for professional use at least once a week.
Sure, you can look at the numbers and say that they have not reached early adoption. But, two years ago these numbers would probably be close to zero. I predict we will see these numbers crossing into the majority within two years.

Thanks to James Mullan of the Running Librarian for pointing out the report.

2 comments:

  1. Doug, two points to clarify - this was an online survey (according to the PDF re: methodology) and not actually interviews). Also, the survey allowed people to "self classify" themselves. Still interesting data points but perhaps also imperfect in some ways.

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  2. Mike -

    Thank you for those clarifications.

    A third item to keep in mind is that the polling group was fairly small. The results could be a distorted view of the world.

    The data was interesting to see that we are probably not in the early majority stage of adoption, but seem to be creeping closer.

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