April 29th, 2009
You Were Never 1.0, but get ready for Enterprise 2.0
Guest editorial by Andrea Baker
Let’s face it, it’s probably true. Your business is deeply married to email. You never read a blog until the past year (at least with some regularity). And you probably don’t know what a discussion page is on a wiki.
Don’t feel bad. You are in the majority.
You are hearing buzz words like “Web 2.0″ and “Facebook group” and “Twitter page” from social media or new media “experts”. This leads you to believe you must be on or using these websites in order to be “with it” and be viable in your business. The common misconception is that you must embrace social media websites or Web 2.0 solutions out on the open internet to run a successful business or be “collaborative and transparent” to your stakeholders. This simply is just not the case. As the decision maker in your business, you need to take control of the internal aspects in order to have a successful external presence.
If you are a normal business, you live in the world that some would call “1.0″. Note, that’s not a bad thing per se. Actually, much of business requires the kind of collaboration that you have established over the past 15-20 years. Along comes “Web 2.0″. If you are like most businesses, you have been ignoring it for the past few years. But it is harder to ignore these days. I bet you never thought of yourself as a “1.0″ company and maybe you are upset if someone calls you old fashioned. After all, you probably spend(t) a lot of money on technology, and it would be upsetting if you found out that the technology is considered “old-fashioned”.
I would tell you to not be upset with this assumption. You are now willing to learn about this buzzword that you have been overhearing at conferences and other social events. You are coming in at the right time where early adopters have tested the waters for you and its time to test the waters yourself, starting at the shallow end. The shallow end is your Intranet and you are ready to hop in. You are now ready for Enterprise 2.0.
The focus of Enterprise 2.0 for business is not outward facing, it is mostly internal. I stress internal. I argue that in order to be successful on the outside of your business in the social media realm, you must practice what you preach internally. You don’t just pick up your tennis racket and win Wimbledon, you have to practice for long hours with coaching along the way before you can step out on to center court. So you must apply the same behaviors to your Enterprise 2.0 for business approach.
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Jennifer Leggio, aka "Mediaphyter," writes about the "social business" side of social media - including enterprise, security and reputation issues. See her full profile and disclosure of her industry affiliations.
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