Thoughts on Enterprise 2.0 and the Social Intranet

Enterprise 2.0 conf - Rome, Dec 2009 - 078Image by Ed Yourdon via FlickrWhat is the difference between Enterprise 2.0 and a “social” intranet? While E2.0 vendors might beg to differ on functionality here is the big difference according to me:

  1.  In enterprise 2.0 the tools enable employee to employee communication, awareness and collaboration
  2. In the “social intranet” while employees do form communities, the primary focus is on the organization to employee communication customised by the “social” data shared by the employee.

Two aspects of collaboration:

  • Enable collaboration in the process of making decisions – which is what some social business tools enable
  • Enable serendipitous discovery of people with shared interests and help people to connect and engage with each other

Obviously the “ROI” argument is easier for the first case – but somehow I suspect the payoff and impact of the second case can be higher and more disruptive

Unfortunately for organizations that seek to keep a control on the conversations, they will choose the “social intranet” over collaboration, as they are scared of the network and people to people connections.

On a different note, it’s always surprising to me that the decision of an organization to embrace “social” is taken by a single person 🙂

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