Stuff in context

Not wanting to be hopelessly behind the times, I did a little poking around about Web 3.0, which as it turns out has been the object of discussion since the first Web 2.0 conference in 2004. Web 2.0 invites users to interact, contribute and collaborate. Web 3.0, a.k.a. the semantic web, puts content in context to give it meaning.

The best explanation is Journalist Kate Ray's short film, Web 3.0. I discovered this at TechCrunch, then went to her site for the transcript with links and other resources.

Kate's interviews with experts like World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee reveal that there is soon going to be so much stuff on the Web--billions, then trillions, of pages--that we will never find the useful bits we seek. "Google doesn't scale to that," says Nova Spivack, serial tech entrepreneur. 

As these guys point out, everything gets filed online--even tweets--cluttering up the cabinet until the drawers are so stuffed you can't parse the pages. Clearly the solution is not to bulk up the Web with referential vectors but to silence the cacophony of Twitter followers.

Doses of altruism

In an interview with ComputerWorld's Sharon Gaudin, Andrew McAfee looks forward to a time when colleagues routinely use Web 2.0 technologies to broadcast their expertise--and their ignorance. He says it's already happening in some enterprises, where workers express the collegial attitude, "I'm going to tell the organization what I'm doing, what I know and what I'm good at." Those who are not so good at something can find experts who are happy to share their expertise. McAfee says, "You have these doses of altruism."

By allowing employees to use tools like blogs and discussion forums, businesses are finally beginning to change the way people work. McAfee, who is principal research scientist at the Center for Digital Business, MIT Sloan School of Management, says enterprise-level adoption of Web 2.0 tools is not yet universal. I find that surprising, since these tools have been around for awhile.

When the tools are in widespread use, McAfee says the workplace will become a "colleague-hood," where people are eager to help the enterprise as a whole. It's an optimistic view of Enterprise 2.0 that transcends individual cut-throat competitiveness in favor of the greater good. I'd like to think that our communication pros are helping to make that happen.

Convince me

Posting from CeBIT trade show in Hanover, Germany, ZDnet blogger Dion Hinchcliffe says, "Business leaders here — and make no mistake, in the United States as well — still want to be convinced that enterprise social software is a good way to improve communication and collaboration for their organizations."

Apparently, even attendees who exhibited rabid enthusiasm for studiVZ and XING (European equivalents of social sites Facebook and Linkedin, respectively), questioned the business application of such Web 2.0 tools. Hinchcliffe notes the absence of corporate success stories:

"[O]ne does occasionally wonder where the executives are from McKinsey’s global study of Web 2.0 adoption last year, which stated that an impressive “'69 percent of respondents report that their companies have gained measurable business benefits, including more innovative products and services, more effective marketing, better access to knowledge, lower cost of doing business, and higher revenues.'"

So where are the people who are using wikis, blogs, social networks and enterprise 2.0 suites to achieve real results? Panelists noted a dearth of ROI reports, which would help to gain management buy-in on Web 2.0 adoption strategies.

A recurrent theme, backed by metrics or not, is that improved communication and collaboration across the enterprise is good for business. I've seen countless examples of engineering projects, for example, that use collaboration technology to connect team members in multiple offices on two or more continents. Citing a 40% improvement in productivity, global engineering consultants like Engevix attest to benefits that go beyond "knowledge sharing and effective marketing" to tangible results building sustainable infrastructure.

In this new category, I'll be posting about real-world Web 2.0 applications that deliver value--through brand impact, sales and marketing results, and tangible asset ROI. If you have a story, let me hear it!