The Trouble With Enterprise 2.0

Back in December 2006, I used the title "In Search of Enterprise 2.0" in a blog. But it seems just as apt today to question the whereabouts of Enterprise 2.0 as it was back then.

It's also worth asking whether storage managers really want to know the whereabouts of this particular approach to information management.

In a press release today, the industry group known as AIIM The ECM Association issued a press release detailing the findings of a survey of 441 end users conducted in January 2008. According to the results, over 70 percent of respondents reported that Enterprise 2.0 would have at least an average impact on business goals and success. At the same time, 74 percent admitted to not knowing what Enterprise 2.0 really is.

To be perfectly clear, 41 percent of respondents stated they had "no clear understanding" of Enterprise 2.0; 33 percent said they were "vaguely familiar" with it; and 14 percent said they were "not sure how this is different from Web 2.0." Just 13 percent reported they were "well aware" of Enterprise 2.0 and ready to tackle it.

The study, commissioned in part by EMC, is a testament to the effectiveness of marketing materials thick with references to Web 2.0 or Enterprise 2.0. It also points to the gap between the real and theoretical when it comes to IT.Lots of storage and IT managers know they have a lot more data these days. They know they need to back it up, archive it, secure it, and ensure it is searchable. They know that email is playing a greater role than ever in this scenario, and unstructured data of all kinds is exceeding the capacities of existing storage and file systems.

They also are preparing for the impact of social networking on their storage setups.

Real Enterprise 2.0, however, is about more than these issues. As laid out by thinkers like Harvard's Andrew McAfee, Enterprise 2.0 represents a fundamental shift in the way groups work together. In the words of the AIIM advisors, who include Professor McAfee, it is "a system of Web-based technologies that provide rapid and agile collaboration, information sharing,emergence, and integration capabilities in the extended enterprise."

And that's the problem. As Tom Davenport, a blogger on Harvard Business School's Web site, points out, Enterprise 2.0 means that managers think differently about information ― as some say, it requires the "democratization" of data.

How many bosses ― or IT departments ― really want that?Are you or your boss really ready to open applications to a wider use company-wide? With security issues abounding, are you willing to open up access to email and other forms of internal communication in order to allow collaborative changes to be made? Are you ready to change your ideas about ownership and management of data?

The answers to these and other questions will take time to formulate. In the meantime, we will have to wait and see just how serious IT really is about making the changes required for real Enterprise 2.0.Have a comment on this story? Please click "Discuss" below. If you'd like to contact Byte and Switch's editors directly, send us a message.

EMC Corp.