Oh dear...it seems like there is another
hoo-ha about who coined Enterprise 2.0 first....as you no doubt realise, it takes a rare flash of pure genius to add "2.0" to "Enterprise", so only a few people in the world have done this - according to Wikipedia, anyway.
The prior art must be somewhat thick on the ground (...heck, we wrote a short paper for a client presentation in late 2005 called
"Enterprise 2.0" - the use of modern web technologies in e-Business, and I'll bet loads of people did likewise).
And while we're at it we've used B2B 2.0, e-Business 2.0, Transformation 2.0, Media 2.0, Customer Service 2.0, JiT 2.0, and even MRP 2.0 (yes, that old chestnut returns). And not even with "ironic" quotes either !
Question - if a term is not invented in California, does it count?
(By the way, reading through that paper now its interesting to see how "Web 2.0" has shifted away from some of the other original aspects and far more towards Social Networked media these days)
Main reason for posting this though was to pick up a point made in a comment by Ajit Jaokar on
his post on the subject:
Within the background of these definitions; most of the thinking today is driven by tools vendors - and is based on 'Intranet 2.0' (if one may coin that phrase!) - i.e. some form of better 'in house' collaboration.
This approach has two immediate problems
a) The payoff with a collaborative tool implementation is difficult to quantify even with the best of implementations. For instance, Nick Carr believes that the best employees may be simply too busy to contribute
b) The implementation of a specific software/tool is viewed as a cost centre and not a profit centre i.e. not directly in the income stream of the company
Quite....some of what is being put out in the name of "Enterprise 2.0" is misleading (to put it politely), and, as Ajit notes, is more about pouring old wine into new bottles.
However, we believe the real value is not just
within the Enterprise, but is released by allowing multiple Enterprises to communicate seamlessly with each other. We have been spending the last few months with a client working out how "Web 2.0" stays as an open network platform when used between Enterprises - but unfortunately there is quite a lot of effort being expended to "lock up" these sort of services (much as we now see with consumer social networks), or to prevent their occurrence in the name of Security etc.
While this is all very understandable, it will set back Enterprise service development - in fact probably to the detriment of the foot-shufflers, as the 'Net usually goes around obstructions, and thsi is unlikely to be an exception.
