Enterprise 2.0 ????

Interesting article written by Dion Hinchcliffe "Enterprise 2.0: Ten Predictions for 2007" regarding an unclear (or undocumented?) transition from "1.0" to "2.0" - the term "enterprise" because of its widespread misuse. I quite like the TOGAF definition:

• "enterprise" is any collection of organizations that has a common set of goals and/or a single bottom line. In that sense, an enterprise can be a government agency, a whole corporation, a division of a corporation, a single department, or a chain of geographically distant organizations linked together by common ownership.

So, lets try to dissect Dion's predictions:

10. Despite the potential for other types of applications, blogs and wikis will dominate the Enterprise 2.0 landscape in 2007. : Whilst this might be true, the purpose of an enterprise is to delivery products of services - if all the employees will spend their time writing blogs and wikis, then "2.0" is just synonym for "disaster". This is pretty much an acknowledgement that 2.0 is associated with "surf the web more".

9. A number of Enterprise 2.0 projects will see lower than expected returns due to excessive structure and low social interaction: this one is a no-brainer ... introduction of new technologies (thinking of SOA in this iteration) will always deliver (in the context of the average enterprise) less than expected returns - there are models of SOA that explain how as projects (services released and shared) progress the ROI increases.

8. Compliance tools will get the rug pulled out from under them as users flock to easier tools out of desperation: yet another no-brainer ... SOX is a burden over the average enterprise, think of the complexities of implementing non-regulatory processes (CMM, Price, TOGAF, Zachman) and why it is so expensive (in human resources & money) to not to have the "rug" pulled out of them, SOX compliance will be more of a miracle!

7. It will be a make or break year for the first round of Enterprise 2.0 tools that add a process aspect: "add a process aspect" ... don't quite get that one ... BPEL ? content flow ? both are new technologies ... or are this business processes within the enterprise ? head hurts by now ...

6. Not a dent will be made in 2007 in the installed base of pre-existing collaborative tools such as e-mail, telephone, and IM. : is this a prediction ? a lot of enterprises are consolidating platforms, a lot of telephony systems have just been installed, IM technologies are still emerging and corporates hardly understand how they operate - even users are still too colloquial to spot something extremely useful about IM, it is just another way of sending emails, when emails are too short - ... doubt much will change for a while.

5. Consumerization of the enterprise will continue apace and will help drive Enterprise 2.0 adoption at the grassroots level. : uhmmm don' t quite get this one! if an employee 'blogs' publicly, it will be sanctioned. 'private' blogging, and wikis are not understood - people still prefer documents that can be printed (kill the rain forest!!!) and print as many as versions are published ! cooperative environments are still too futuristic (i remember my collaborative/groupware seminar back in 1996 ... still a lot of that hasn't seen the light within the "1.0" scope)

4. A surprisingly fierce battle will ensue between the big software makers and the small Enterprise 2.0 startups.: are we talking about dotcom 2.0 ? ... the battle will be mainly in terms of over priced startups (most of them, not all) and how enterprises will try to mitigate costs of acquisition ...

3. Effective enterprise search will emerge as a key prerequisite for Enterprise 2.0 success.: good ideas are pre-requisites of success of any enterprise - search is just a tool to find information! Good search engines, good search queries and good documents are all requirements to make good use of the information, one of them missing (mainly "good documents") and it doesn't matter how smart you make your search infrastructure - information will be misplaced.

2. A few high-profile misuses of Enterprise 2.0 will crop up but will fail to put much of a damper on things.: and this is just by using the law of averages ... ?

1. Enterprise 2.0 and Office 2.0 will face off as leading new terms for online business software and no one will win: "Enterprise 2.0 is a broad a term" ... I say "enterprise is a broad term" ... office is just a tool (again) that enables - "office 1.0" has been misused - and "office 2.0" will also be misused - bad architectures give bad results, the "think tactical, develop tactical" paradigm used by most enterprises is what dooms themselves !

I guess that article was written for the pure of heart ... I am sorry!