Comments on The Trouble With Web 2.0

laurie kalmanson — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 14:36:53 GMT

adam’s comments on the second thoughts and second guessing that accompany corporate explorations of web 2.0 tools are exactly right on

when corporate speech is controlled by a few annointed speakers—hr, pr, etc—the guidelines are internalized and self enforcing

when new tools make corporate speech a megaphone that can be held by more people, well, it all gets a lot more uncertain whether speakers will abide by “professional” guidelines or not

discuss

;)

Adam Polansky — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 12:46:50 GMT

Great article! It’s nice to read something about Web 2.0 that isn’t passionately layered over with hype.

Chris’ point about cultural change is the thing I see as the most material factor in how successful Web 2.0 initiatives will be in the context of larger firms.

There are other considerations that come with the fact that a firm might be publicly traded or owned by an equity firm or some other body whose interest in a company is directly tied to profitability that can be forecast. Web 2.0 business plans often require the kind of “faith” that is difficult to get from an executive level that answers to a board of directors so the stakeholders begin to try and shore up the initiative in several ways.

Because of this context, the built-in tendency of companies to jump on a new idea but apply old thinking to its execution retards the outcome. It seems as though the best 2.0 applications out there have been able stay pretty targeted in their goals. Focus on core-competencies has always been a factor in business success. However, when a larger firm says “Hey kids, let’s build a Web 2.0 product”, they initially think through all the great participation they’ll invoke, the freedom of expression that will characterize it, the bazillions of dollars that will come with an integrated media model and the great extension of their brand that will occur as a result of this new Web property.

Then they get to thinking…

Participation, hmmm…we’ll need to develop a multi-channel marketing plan to create buzz and incent people to use our site.

Free expression, hmmm…can we expose ourselves and our brand to unsolicited editorial content? We’ll have to go over the fine points with Legal.

New media model hmmm…this can be done effectively but if we want to get lucrative contracts from our ad buyers, what concessions will we have to make to the look and or function of the site?

There’s also the layering-on that occurs when multiple organizations within the firm want a piece of the pie which results in cramming additional functionality or elements into the product. These stakeholder-needs start to move away from that core focus of the application.

It would be too sweeping to say that big company’s DNA creates a prohibitive environment for the development and perpetuation of a successful Web 2.0 app but I think there needs to be a degree of isolation and protection around those efforts to get them off the ground effectively.

Chris Butler — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:36:18 GMT

Alex,

You’re completely right that taking the knowledge-sharing and reputation-building models to a next step of monetization will probably not happen, at least not directly. However, I know that in the case of our company (Newfangled), building a strong reputation based upon expertise in areas beyond our bottom-line deliverables is critical. When we partner with an agency, one of the driving factors of that partnership is that they are trusting us to educate them and anticipate what technology adoptions and adjustments will be appropriate to their web strategy both now and in the future. While our knowledge of various technologies may or may not be germane to an individual agency’s needs, the breadth of it helps an agency to be confident that we are a solid partner to adopt. So, while there is no specific knowledge-sharing-to-revenue metric, we know anecdotally and intuitively that there is a correlation. This is why we encourage all of our clients to adopt strategies that utilize blogs and newsletters (inherently information-sharing tools) as a means of connecting with existing clients and “clients-to-be” in a clear, honest and flexible way. Financially, it may never be as measurable as ad systems or SEM, but it will definitely build solid business over time.

Thanks, also, for taking the time to thoughtfully respond to each comment! True, we’re not being paid, but we are being enriched.

Jon Lebkowsky — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 07:03:31 GMT

I posted a rather lengthy response here:
http://socialwebstrategies.com/?p=17

Michael Ricard — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 10:55:23 GMT

Alexander, while I am a big supporter of IM in the enterprise for its ability to contribute to knowledge sharing, I can concur with your point about the de-personalizing effects. I do sometimes find myself chatting to people I sit next to instead of making eye contact and vocalizing what I want to say. A handy feature of this particular chat client is the file and image attachments which can be appended to text to enhance what I wish to express – swings and roundabouts – does this translate across the Atlantic?; aka “six to one and half dozen to another”. For busy environments where moneymaking is the chief driver, this unfortunately becomes the norm. As with all new technologies there are positives and negatives to them.

Without giving away too much sensitive business information, the search capabilities of certain IM systems allow for very detailed searches indeed. The business advantages of knowledge mining chat is one of the features which has encouraged Microsoft to add a powerful group chat system into its upcoming Microsoft® Office Communications Server and Microsoft Office Communicator, Microsoft’s server and client software for presence, instant messaging, conferencing and VoIP.

As you can imagine, once the wide user base of enterprise MS Office customers buys into group chat, the acceptance of this form of collaboration in a wide range of industry sectors will spread fast, probably seeding other forms of collaboration such as wikis and blogs. Web 2.0 in the enterprise? It’s still early days, but we’re approaching lift off.
PS – I hope the above link works; I haven’t used Public Square before so I’m not sure it takes standard HTML.

Alexander Wilms — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:08:53 GMT

Michael – instant messaging is a great communication tool, as is e-mail. Compared to e-mail IM is stronger as it supports discussion-like conversations, which are a classic way of sparking creativity. However I see some lacks in IM as a knowledge-sharing tool. It prevents people from talking directly to each other (sometimes I catch myself chatting to the person in the office next door instead of making the few steps over) which de-personalizes communication. Often it de-synchronizes discussion as the communication flow is disrupted – the more people in, the worse it gets. The greatest challenge I would see is the organization and presentation of the content – you wrote that all communication is archived and searchable. I just try to imagine myself searching for a very specific item and having to browse through a lot of “logfiles” of past conversations. Search is a very powerful method of retrieval, but it gets cumbersome if your goal is well defined – if you are looking for “deduction alternatives for assets in Germany” you will be happy to get a broad search result and many “hits”, however if you are searching for the “depreciation tables §255 HGB” you don’t want to browse conversations like “who took the comment book from the library”... So your IM archives may be a gold mine containing valuable grains of knowledge – question is how to unearth them.

Alexander Wilms — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:08:32 GMT

Chris – reputation and popularity is a strong driver in “non-profit” communities. It definitely works for us, however we have earned our money during the day and do this as a leisure time activity. However if collaboration will compete against earning money this is a different picture. Reputation and popularity might still be valued, e.g. in a “community-like” corporate environment like a small consulting practice. In think that this will work as long as people will have a somehow personal relationship and are dependent on each others know-how. As Michael has pointed out – if you might need the help of others you will be willing to “donate” some of your time to help them. I think that the “tit for tat” strategy of game theory points in the same direction. This cooperation model however will cease to work when people can cheat successfully – the theory on this is known as the “tragedy of the commons” in economics. But you are right in pointing out that the source of motivation is an intrinsic one and we will need to stimulate this when we want to be successful.

Terry – well, just now its budget season again and funding is definitely an issue, especially when company policies will not allow to use open-source systems or require certain security measures. Include implementation costs, all non-IT related costs such as monetary reward schemes or additional manpower to create and maintain content and it will become a huge bill. An offer for an enterprise content management system will easily have a six to seven digit figure at the bottom, and if you want to reallocate this among your departments there will be lively discussions on their size of the share.
Thanks for your remark on sharing within the IT industry – that is a special industry that has it’s very own specific laws. Take the example of developers, who are actually artisans (in a positive way, with a strong emphasis on the syllable “art”) face value and senior craftsmanship still count a lot – so sharing is one way of promoting their skills. But what about an investment banker who just created a new investment scheme that will create him a lot of new contracts – would he share it just to be recognized as financial genius or rather prefer to generate as much revenue as possible before the copyists appear on the scene? As Chris pointed out – its all about money.

Alexander Wilms — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 18:37:12 GMT

All,
I’d like to thank you very much for your comments – seems that the idea of sharing knowledge does really work (but unfortunately we are not getting paid for it ;-))

Chris – you are very right in pointing out that it is very easy to provide a platform (like Google) while providing the content is much more cumbersome. Very often clients believe that once they have a 2.0 tool like a wiki or blog the tool will do the magic and create and maintain the content. You are also right in pointing out that monetary incentives will enable the creation of platforms and content. But there is again the issue – while currently in the “outside world” advertising seems to be the engine, corporations will need to find other ways to drive innovation in platforms and content as ads will not work for them.

Paolo – thanks for confirming that I am not alone ;-) Your contribution to this article leads me to the belief that the driving principles behind Web 2.0 do work. So once we are conscious of the processes and drivers behind them we can start to think about ways to support their evolution in a corporate environment.

Michael – your comment gives us hints how cooperation can be archieved, thanks for adding this here. I totally agree that self-interest is the driver for contribution, people will act if they can see their own benefit. And you also pointed out that there is not the one driver that will motivate people – as people are driven by their individual motives you have to find the “right recipe” for each of them. Your point about the value of individual knowledge and the loss a cooperation will face by loosing is pointing in the direction of a business case for collaboration initiatives – following this line we might be able to justify an investment in collaboration incentives.

Jamie – I am a bit hesitating about your idea of guidelines, but that is maybe due to the range of things covered by this term. I don’t think that there is a “guideline recipe” for success here – again we have to take the individual personal motivation and the different environments into account. What will work in a small consulting firm might not work in a large sales-driven organization (and vice versa). What will motivate a new-hire won’t probably motivate a senior consultant. Policy-like guidelines might not work either – you cannot “force” people to contribute. Best practice guidelines will definitely help to understand and to form the processes – I think that is what you meant? Having case-studies or scenarios describing what was done to promote cooperation in which environment and under which conditions, what worked and (maybe more important) what failed? Having a book full of best practices to start with would be a great help for anybody who needs to design a collaboration environment.

Michael Ricard — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 22:50:21 GMT

I’m on a contract right now with a very large bank and I administer an instant messaging system. This is my first experience with this kind of instant collaboration in an enterprise setting and I find it very effective for exchanging ideas in the workplace. You can join group channels or one-to-one with other users in the bank. Everything is logged (so people know to keep everything above board, with group channels backed up and searchable.

Does IM fall into the remit for this discussion? It should because it enables knowledge sharing big time. Have any of you guys used IM in the enterprise?

Terry Bleizeffer — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 04:17:10 GMT

This is a really interesting topic and you raise some good points about the pains of adopting Web 2.0 patterns in enterprise intranets. I have a couple of comments from my own experience… but first a couple anal-retentive nits:
– the “common knowledge” link appears to be broken
– there’s a minor typo in the last paragraph – ”...will not change the company INTO an open and informal community…”

Regarding the web as a platform, you’re certainly right about the challenges about the funding model. But in my experience this is not a critical problem because a) user-generated content means the cost of supplying the infrastructure is really small… the content provides the business value, not the infrastructure, so providing funding for a wiki (for example) is cheap and folks can’t really charge much money for that service anyway because it’s only as useful as the content that is added (usually by other people), and b) many of the Web 2.0 projects are extensions of websites, which already suffered from the same funding challenges. For example, adding “Was this page useful?” functionality to the company HR site doesn’t change the funding challenges (and actually might help it). This new business model is a much more dramatic issue outside of intranets, in my opinion.

Your point about motivating people to share their knowledge is right on target. Let’s face it – nowadays most people in the IT industry are valued more for their knowledge than particular skills, and if someone with critical knowledge openly shares it with the company, they could help the company but make themselves less valuable. I mostly think this is a false concern – I think people will be rewarded and be seen as MORE valuable when they widely share their knowledge – but in this case perception is reality. I don’t know the answer here, but I think part of it is making sure the company is visibly celebrating people who make significant contributions… that’s a reward in its own right and it shows that the company values the individual as much as the knowledge.

There are no easy answers here – it’s going to take the industry a long time to get our collective heads around Web 2.0 and the enterprise.

Chris Butler — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 04:17:17 GMT

I like the point raised by Michael- that the community aspect of ‘web 2.0’ is not that simple to foster, especially in the corporate environment. There are many sites that utilize community tools to share knowledge with a variety of methods and certainly varying success. For example, LinkedIn uses its ‘Ask a Question’/’Answer a Question’ format to allow users to share knowledge and build an online reputation through evaluating whether answers were helpful to them. Similarly, this site allows users to gain reputation points over time as they post comments, as well as vote on other users’ comments. It’s a subtle, but effective, way to enhance commenting functionality with a valuation system.

I like these approaches over a more ‘popularity’ based system since it places the value in the information, rather than in the person, and see them as somewhat necessary in motivating users to participate despite not receiving payment for their time and effort.

Michael Ricard — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 04:17:26 GMT

First, I would like to say I enjoyed the article very much. It is a very good overview of Web 2.0 and the issues raised with rolling it to the enterprise.

I administered a public sector ‘online community’ and faced the difficulties of getting members to participate by posting topics and responding to topics with their relative expertise. I tried altruism since they were an altruistic bunch being supported housing professionals in local councils around the country. But that didn’t work. I tried self-interest saying that active participation would enhance their standing in their local area and amongst their peers in the public sector as a whole.

What seemed to work best was enlightened self-interest: telling members that by helping others in the online community they were encouraging others to come to their aid in their time of need. Back scratching works to a point. I had to work extra hard at finding the communicators and fostering them because there was little or no encouragement from their own council teams. Unless members are backed by their line management, only the most committed posters will stay the course.

I have moved on to private sector corporates, and while there are the glimmerings of Web 2.0 struggling to make it in the enterprise, initiatives are being stymied by security and discipline concerns. The fear of losses in productivity are prevalent because of the ignorance of the added value improved employee communication gives to a firm. Too often good people move on and take their knowledge of the business with them. Companies pay thousands recruiting a replacement and then training them up to the approximate level of their predecessor (without their priceless empirical experiences).

A knowledgebase of employee expertise survives when employees move on. The value of this is inestimable. Employees who are asked to share their knowledge feel more valued as well, usually resulting in longer job retention. Companies who can’t see the value in sharing knowledge in the enterprise will be too dumb to survive.

Jamie Owen — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:39:27 GMT

A really good article with a good number of insights. Thank you.

It’s my opinion that we can’t be passive (an ironic accusation) when we take Web 2.0 into the more formalized culture of a corporation or business. Indeed we can never be sure how the situation will shake out when left to a respective population to involve itself. Just the opposite. We need to be quite active as this fresh paradigm matures. We can’t just push it out of the nest expecting it to fly. There need to be deliberate GUIDELINES for employees’ Web 2.0-natured use to make its implementation successful.

I am thinking of guidelines created by leadership, IT folks, change management folks, and other strategists within a corporation—top to bottom. These are guidelines that establish boundaries AND educate AND resonate with a given corporate culture. The boundaries are rules and protocol designed to encourage productive participation and minimize risks—they set expectations; the education conveys to the employee the value of participation in the Web 2.0 environment(s) within the culture of that corporation or business. It’s more than just retooling the Pavlovian rewards for participation (failure “if the companies do not change their rewarding schemes and knowledge management processes.”). It’s creating the guidelines so that each employee understands the value of participation to his/her role and performance in the company.

I think guidelines are instrumental in preventing the phenomenon that “contributions go down because people start to value other things as important.” (And hopefully the guidelines evolve as the use of Web 2.0 within the company evolves.)

What’s it mean to an IA or UX person? It means a lot of work! Because passivity has turned to activity, design and development now encompass myriad more factors (and unknowns) than might have been required for acute projects or initiatives with tidy start/finish dates. But if guidelines like this are established, it at least gives us a common orientation to guide IA and design decisions that both sit well with the respective corporate culture as well as with us.

Paolo Bormida — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 04:17:36 GMT

Alexander,

thank you for the thoughtful story, it largely confirms many fears I had about the web 2.0 hype in the enterprise, but also gave me many insight into not-so-obvious details of the whole thing (like the IT department funding model that has to change).

I have seen some of the things you mention happen, and I strongly agree that a different rewarding scheme must be put in place, in order for collaboration technologies, like wikis, to work in an enterprise. With no good rewarding scheme, web 2.0 efforts in an enterprise would rarely gain an effective user base, nor bring any innovation to it.

You did a good job of making clear that patterns that made web 2.0 tools work quite well on the internet, are not guaranteed to work the same in the enterprise arena, since numbers and people dinamics are rather different.

Chris Butler — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 04:17:41 GMT

Alexander,

This is a great overview of “Web 2.0,” which I have found to be more about adjusting expectations than any specific technological shift or trend in web development. Just a quick thought:

While the expectations are changing in response to new technical capabilities, I think there are a couple of factors that skew perception when it comes to establishing expectations for new projects. One significant factor is what I like to call the ‘Google curve,’ which is basically that users have great expectations for robust functionality at very little cost because Google has given us great tools (email, calendar, rss reader, blogging, etc.), not to mention industry standard search, at no immediately obvious cost. The trick is that we are now the worker bees filling the internet with ‘content’ for Google to index and serve ads on. When clients want similar functionality on their own websites, whether it is comprehensive and flexible search tools, blogs, etc., they are aghast when they realize that it will take time and money to build them.

The second factor is directly related in that it is all about money. The big shift that is still in process is the monetization of advertising models within the news, entertainment, and search industries. Until a standard is reached for advertising online, I think we’re all going to have an interesting time of gaining our footing when it comes to advising our clients. No doubt we’ll need to quickly adapt to any of the likely changes in that industry to come.

Semantic web, here we come!