The “McKinsey Global Survey Results: How companies are benefiting from web 2.0” was published past September 2009 (with subsequent stream of blog posts posting results and exhibits). Just a few questions after re-reading it:

Concerning survey procedure: respondents were using at least 1 web 2.0 app, “even on trial basis”.

The results  yielded that among respondents reporting clear benefits (which ranged from increasing access to experts or knowledge to reducing communication costs, amongst others), the most widely used web 2.0 technologies were the popular ones outside the enterprise world: “blogs, wikis, and podcasts” (p.3). I’m not sure whether wikis are really that popular among mainstream web 2.0 users, we know of their existence but wikis aren’t massively used (except in the education field, as I hinted here), I’d have expected ’social networking apps’ to be more popular amongst those non-enterprise users rather than wikis. Concerning the usage of wikis and their benefits in the enterprise, results are eloquent especially for internal purposes: 40% of respondents reported at least 1 measurable benefit, whereas 22% reported wikis usage didn’t yield any measurable benefit.

Web 2.0 technologies such as microblogging (aka Twitter) fell behind in the results, in their usage and benefits for internal, external-customer, and external partners-suppliers purposes. What it’s left to be investigated is whether this is due to real failure or because respondents are not active users or heavy users of this technology and therefore give more weight to the popular/familiar ones (they were among us long before the ‘new ones’ arrived).

Being a very much needed report as a starting point, a global survey research with a specific focus on each mentioned technology would be highly welcomed now, with a random set of real active and heavy users (executives and other employees) of each technology as respondents, ie. 100 active users of blogs vs 100 active users of microblogging vs etc, in order to compare which technology reports more validated benefits for a given set of purposes (e.g. employee internal communication, idea nurturing, customer communication, customer support, tapping expert knowledge, reducing project duration, to name but a few…).

For your interest on comparative research (e.g. comparing results, drawing some evolution or comparing validation methodology of surveys -or if there’s any), I’ve collected a list of surveys’ results on web 2.0 in the enterprise, ‘the evolution’. Feel free to suggest more.

• UPDATED 29/06/2010 2010: Enterprise 2.0 in Belgium by KCompany.
• 2010: Toward Enterprise 2.0 Survey Report by Early Strategies.
• 2010: Enterprise 2.0 and Social Media in Business (Finland market) by Growth Lab Consulting.
• 2010: The Global Intranet Trends Report by Jane McConnell.
• 2009: How companies are benefiting from Web 2.0: McKinsey Global Survey Results by McKinsey.
• 2009: The State of Enterprise 2.0 Adoption Q4 2009 by The 2.0 Adoption Council.
• 2009: Web 2.0 at Work by Dynamic Markets and WebSense.
• 2009: Enterprise 2.0 Adoption Survey by The Enterprise 2.0 Blog.
• 2009: Collaboration and Enterprise 2.0: Work-Meets-Play or the Future of Business? by AIIM.
• 2009: Intranet 2.0 Global Survey Report by Prescient Digital Media.
• 2008: Corporate Social Networking in Europe by Dynamic Markets and AT&T.
• 2008: Enterprise Social Media: Trends and Best Practices in Adoptin Web 2.0 by Awareness Networks.
• 2008: CRM and Social Media: Maximizing Deeper Customer Relationships by Avanade and Coleman Parkes Research.
• 2008: Building the Web 2.0 Enterprise: McKinsey Global Survey Results by McKinsey.
• 2008: Enterprise 2.0: Agile, Emergent and Integrated by AIIM.
• 2007: How businesses are using Web 2.0: A McKinsey Global Survey by McKinsey.
• 2007: CIOs Want Suites for Web 2.0 by Forrester.
• 2007: Enterprise 2.0: The Benefits and Challenges of Adoption by KPMG.
• 2004: Online Communities in Business: Past Progress, Future Directions by SageNet LLC.

Related posts:

1. Wikis: working together made true

Enterprise 2.0, as stated by Nielsen, is not about tools, but tools do matter. Wikis are celebrating their 15th anniversary this year (Ward Cunningham installed his first wiki on March 25th 1995). Wikis’ evolution, despite being probably one of the first 2.0 enablers (in the sense of giving empowerment to users, turning everyone into an editor), hasn’t been a bed of roses. After the advent of blogs, the super star, wikis had to struggle to stay in the spotlight. Some apps are easy come, easy go. But 15 years is already some respectful figure to bear in mind. Education has probably been the field with a higher level of embracement. But then being a collaborative tool by nature, how was the ‘enterprise 2.0′ movement going to miss it out (I’m not referring to the early ‘embracers’ but to the mainstream E2.0)?

Wikis are as versatile as your needs and targets:

• We have a sales meeting in 2 weeks and we have to prepare our Q2 sales report.
• We have the chance to win a sales bid by creating a winning offer.
• We need to keep track of our competitors’ innovations and analyze what we should or shouldn’t do to stay in the battlefront.
• We are holding an event and we have to organize everything accordingly (budget, attendees, venue, schedule, topics, etc.)
• We are preparing a series of posts for our blog and we need to collate links and set a calendar of posts.
• We are rebuilding our website and we need to manage and keep track of task assignments, timescales and milestones.
• We need to work with our external partners around a given project.

Since, again as Nielsen says, “it’s about what the tools let users do and the business problems the tools address”, just focus on the latter.

I recommend the following:

1) Analyze beforehand if creating a wiki on a topic is what you need. Don’t work on wikis just for the sake of it. Especially ensure whether: a) your business is geared towards open innovation and the contribution of ideas is nurtured, or instead colleagues tend to pick on each other’s work and ideas and no one dares to be exposed. I’d say that openness is a belief, you either feel it or not, ie. 1,000 consultants can make you see how wrong your approach is, and they’re right and you may even try, but if you don’t feel it as something yours, chances are it may not work in the long run (that’s why I posed the question adopting vs embracing). And b) is there a target to work towards?

2) If you are the person creating a wiki, set some guidelines for contributors. I usually use the front page to mention what, how, when and why.

3) Unlike me in this post, avoid using the word ‘wiki’ at all. Unfortunately, to many people, wikis are just a geeky thing, even worse, just a synonym of that thing Wikipedia, a utopian experiment to keep the employees unfocused, etc. Or something very very complicated and a waste of time (what was that wiki syntax shortcut again?). Just talk about targets and needs. Then no one should bring up FUD.

At Whatever, guys opted for something, not only more beautiful and metaphorical, but also for something that just nails it: Mosaics. Indeed, in Knowledge Plaza (you know, our flagship etc.) colleagues and team mates create mosaics. That’s exactly what we get, even more obvious when we export the whole mosaic: a nicely wrapped collection of contributions and related links around a given target. Ergo, working together collaboratively made tangible.

No related posts.

“Enterprise 2.0 adoption” yields 3,180,000 results on Google (as of today).

We are continuosly using the ‘collocation’ (while, at the same, continuously neglecting the great lessons language can teach us): adoption, enterprise 2.0 adoption, culture adoption… Wait, adoption?

As defined by Merriam-Webster, ”adoption:  to accept formally and put into effect”.

And they go on by differentiating ‘adoption’ and ‘embracement’:  ”(…) adopt implies accepting something created by another or foreign to one’s nature  (…) embrace implies a ready or happy acceptance”.

So I wouldn’t like professionals, freelancers, SMEs and big organizations to adopt collaboration enabling apps (or any other sort of apps for that matter). The term implies ‘forcing’, not your own nature…Instead, I’d like those companies to welcome and embrace.

“Welcome: to accept with pleasure the occurrence or presence of someone/something.”

Maybe both are possible at different moments on a company’s timeline. First adopt, then welcome. But I can’t seem to picture a nice and successful transition in there, being adoption something that doesn’t carry any emotional attachment, and sometimes even too close to ‘forcing’ per se. So I still doubt whether ‘adoption’ is the right approach/word.

For users to welcome and embrace, it takes adaptation.

“Adaptation: modification of an organism or its parts that makes it more fit for existence under the conditions of its environment.”

Adaptation from whom? Since I am user-centric, I would say the app should adapt to the users needs and not viceversa. That’s why blaming everything on the ‘lack of culture’ might be an easy ‘exit strategy’ (interesting and more intelligent discussion here). Adaptation may require incentives as a strategy from the company (hey, after all, even if you like what you do for a living, employees like getting incentives when they are proactive or collaborative). Working is not an intrinsic or tacit motivation, it’s extrinsic so what’s wrong in talking about incentives?

Paula Thornton puts it way better:

If you have to “drive adoption” you’ve failed at 2.0 design and implementation. The fundamentals of 2.0 are based on design that is organic — meets the individual where they are and adapts based on feedback — it emerges. The ‘adoption’ comes from rigorous ‘adaptation’ — it continuously morphs based on involvement from the ‘masses’. If done right, you can’t keep them away…because you’ve brought the scratch for their itch.

Language reflects mindset and we act upon our language. May I ask you:  Is working towards ‘enterprise 2.0 adoption‘ what can make it all go wrong?

–

Excusatio: (Please bear in mind English is not my mother tongue…)

Related posts:

1. Enterprise 2.0: some advice on trial periods