Maand: januari 2007

Well the last few days I ran into the problem of contribution. Enterprise 2.0 is depending upon users at the office editing and creating content to create and share knowledge. People have to make time to do this, or better put their bosses have to give them time. In the knowledge worker community where jobs have a heavy complexity of work and collaborate with others no one will have a boss. They of course have a superior but this person does not tell them what to do. The knowledge workers will do as they think is fit to get their jobs done. The last few days I have been very busy for my customers and not with posting on my blog. Today I have a moment to get going again and see that my last post is 13 days ago…

How do you avoid these situations? Well you don’t! Knowledge workers are very busy people with a lot on their minds. But it is a matter of choice and opportunity. When I think back about the last few days I spend a lot of time behind my tablet-pc editing and creating content. This is the same as I am doing at this moment. The integration of tools could give more opportunity to share content and give time to blogging (as an example of an enterprise 2.0 activity). A lot of tools are integrating with email because it is the tool of choice of bilions of people!

Integration of functionality (in hard- and software) is one of the keys in enterprise 2.0 and it will be a possible sollution to my problem and hopefully to the problem of many other problems.

Well of course this has to be mentioned. For a long time everybody was talking and blogging and writing about an apple phone and nog it is here! Watch this! I cannot wait until it ships and get sent to Europe in Q4 of this year. The specs are great and the easy touchscreen interface is very promissing. The functions displayed on the site are very intuitive as you would expect from apple. The use of this tool as a blackberry will be much better I guess due to the bigger screen (which automatically rotates!), bigger hard drive and more capabilities!

Today a little piece on wehkamp. This is a dutch company that sells just about everything. In the old brick and mortar days they sent thick magazines to every household in Holland. Nowadays they sell 75% through their website. A few days a go they launched a new website. The launch was accompanied with a big discount program, TV and Radio ads and now it is live.

On the site they have a small corner that asks the customers what they feel about the new site. The comments are posted and (after a review) they are shown on the site. The ten best comments get a reward and are published in the Telegraaf (a big dutch newspaper).

I think it is a great thing that Wehkamp is trying this! I have two comments on this feedback loop: it only lasts a month and thus ends. This is a waste because people will allways have comments on the site. This site will be ‘alfa’ in february and not remain a beta site for the rest of its natural life! Second the people from Wehkamp must give feedback on user comments and show what they have done with it to keep the visitors going (and coming and most importantly: buying)

Well I am back from the holidays and returned to work on tuesday. So here are some thoughts on the subject:

two interesting posts about enterprise 2.0. The first is from intel about IT spending, look here for the article. A nice feature of web 2.0 is that the applications you can use online are free. In an enterprise this is an illusion of course but there must be a shift in IT cost because at these cost rates enterprise 2.0 will not happen. Due to the fast cycles a CFO will not allow for big spending on a project or an application that will last for 18 months. The providers of enterprise software must acknowledge that it is to much and start lowering there prices of think of another pricing model. Only then a company can start spending more dollars in new innovative stuff!

The second post is about the forecast of 2007, this one is from dion hinchcliffe. He gives 10 directions of enterprise 2.0. Two directions are the most important (according to me). The first one is about search. The foremost application of enterprise 2.0 will be te start coping with the enormous amout of content and the way users are getting what they need. The installed base of early collaborative tools like email and IM have not given way. During the year smart tools that could replace them arrive and a base is created.

I hope you liked my insights!