Gearing for Enterprise 2.0

World over the enterprise 2.0 hype seems to be catching up.
Organizations are making all possible attempts to be a part of or contribute to this hype.
However a look beyond the hype and you would realise not many organizations would have an iota of clue on how to make the best of this hype.

Lets look at some questions first

1. Is web 2.0 a corporate led or employee led initiative ?

2. Would web 2.0 impact my systems or my processes?

3. How would i be able to leverage corporate networks around the globe?

4. Would there be shared sources of information to leverage such networks ?

5. Who in the organization would be leading or driving enterprise 2.0 strategy.

These are tough questions and as more and more organizations engage time and resources some clarity around these should emerge.

So what should organizations do in the interim. Some of the following might help,
Analyse the workforce composition, this is essential to determine what strategies to use. For example, the age and the work profile would determine what kind of collaboration strategies would be effective. The distribution of workforce would determine whether close collaboration techniques would help.
Start now, because today is the best time to see how these strategies actually work. When organizations adopt the Enterprise 2.0 strategies in a big way; competitive pressures and internal forces would leave little time to experiment. Organizations that start today with a blog, wiki or any other tools would be in the best position to manage change and also leverage these tools in the best possible way going forward.

So where is the real impediment ? Thinking and systems. Organizations continue to live in silos. Enterprise 2.0 strategies implementation would mean a consolidated environment that can utilize the information gathered through various mechanisms. Another important factor would be to clearly understand business drivers, because they would determine how best organizations can use Enterprise 2.0 strategies be it blogging for customer, hr marketing, knowledge hotspots or wikis, mashups, social networks. It would be nice to see how all of these comes to reality !!, till then like you i am watching what organizations are doing on this front :)