What is Enterprise 2.0?

What is Enterprise 2.0?

AIIM defines Enterprise 2.0 as a system of web-based technologies that provide rapid and agile collaboration, information sharing, emergence and integration capabilities in the extended enterprise.

Social software for an enterprise must according to Andrew McAfee, Associate Professor, Harvard Business School have the following functionality to work well:

• Search: allow users to search for other users or content
• Links: group similar users or content together
• Authoring: be easy to produce content
• Tags: allow users to tag content
• Extensions: recommendations of users or content based on profile, preferences, and/or behavior 
• Signals: allow people to subscribe to users or content

He recommends that the software must be easy to use and not impose any rigid structure for users. The roll-out should be informal, but on a common platform to enable future collaboration between areas. He also recommends strong and visible managerial support to achieve this. The above list was expanded upon by Dion Hinchcliffe in 2007 by adding the following 4 functions:

• Freeform: no barriers to authorship, i.e. free from a learning curve or restrictions.
• Network-oriented: all content must be Web-addressable.
• Social: stresses transparency (to access), diversity (in content and community members) and openness (to structure)
• Emergence: must provide approaches that detect and leverage the collective wisdom of the community.

Below are some examples of Enterprise 2.0 tools;

• Blog: Short for Web Log, a light-weight authoring platform, typically focused on a single-author model, primarily textual, although can include essentially any type of "multimedia" content as well. Commenting or other interaction methods are typically provided for audience participation. The lowered barrier of authorship with blogging platforms is credited with the more rapid adoption of such toolsets, versus a traditional Web authoring system.
• Wiki (Hawaiian for quick) Server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web content using a browser. It supports hyperlinks, has a simple text syntax (at minimum) for creating new pages and cross-links between internal pages on the fly. Contributors can edit content as well as the organization of content in a wiki platform.
• RSS: Really Simple Syndication. Standards-based, and formatted as XML for easy consumption and transformation by feed readers, aggregators, dashboards, or mashup solutions. RSS (and ATOM, a variant feed type) are pull-based rather than push-based (as compared to e-mail, for example) communication streams
• Podcasting: Short for "iPod Broadcasting," a term coined by Adam Curry, former VJ for MTV. Sometimes called "The Multimedia blog" format. What separates a true "podcast" from simple embedded audio/video clips, is that a podcast channel may be subscribed to using a feed, such as RSS or ATOM, so that users can consume this content by pulling that content rather than being sent from a broadcaster out to a recipient.
• Voting: One of the simplest forms of social interactions in information systems, providing a yes/no, thumbs up/ down aspect of feedback that can provide visual or other indicators to other users, as well as in manipulating the ranking/ordering of presented information.
• Social Bookmarking: A form of Tagging, done by individuals, to "remember in public" resources (based on URLs), and which communicates context and categorization that may not have been seen through a more formalized taxonomy-driven viewpoint. Popularized via the service, del.icio.us.
• Collaborative Filtering: A method of determining the relevance and/or "value" of content or other contributions by the actions of individuals. May be influenced by implicit actions (such as purchasing an item, indicating "popularity"), or explicit actions (such as a ranking or rating, whether textual or via a rating mechanism such as 1-5 star reviews).
• Social Networking: Dynamic "relationship" (friend, co-worker, family, employer, etc.) building, Social Networking is foremost about person-to-person connections, and not necessarily "community" or collaboration. Without being linked or integrated into a communication platform (e.g., discussion forum), the value of being able to use the established network is harder to achieve, as discussions are taken out of context into another channel. Facebook and LinkedIn are prime examples of consumer-facing Social Networking sites.
• Social Network Analysis (SNA): A toolkit and set of methodologies used to uncover the patterns of interactions within a social network. In an organizational setting, SNA may be used to uncover "how work is actually done" vs. a traditional organizational chart of the division of labor. It may be used to identify bottlenecks, or hidden key players who facilitate work outside of what is "normally" seen as their role. The outcome of SNA is frequently a visualization of the network, showing the numbers of connections between participants, the strength of connections, and in some cases, the volume of interactions (such as e-mail, phone, etc.).
• Agent: Search/query functionality that runs in background 24/7, allowing relevant information to be delivered to users as it arrives, and can filter information according to user preferences.

Below are some examples of benefits of Enterprise 2.0 tools:

AIIM has developed an Enterprise 2.0 training course in best practices for using Web 2.0 technologies to improve collaboration and knowledge management within an enterprise. This vendor neutral training program was developed by AIIM based on learning objectives defined by an advisory panel consisting of some of the industry's foremost thinkers on Enterprise 2.0. For more information visit www.aiim.org/training

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