Just to clear the decks of data before moving onto other topics, Ross wrote about a series of Enterprise 2.0 surveys from Forrester & McKinsey a month ago.
Forrester's two surveys are with CIOs. In the first, CIOs indicate that they would rather buy blogs/wikis/RSS/podcasts/tags/networking as suites from existing major vendors. This is hardly surprising as CIOs would rather buy most things as suites from existing vendors unless a niche vendor can give them something mission-critical that will make them look like hero in front of the CEO. The report mentions concerns over integration with existing infrastructure & lack of professionalism from smaller vendors. I would take this further & suggest that most CIOs do not see Web 2.0 tech as mission critical but rather as something that will quickly become commodified in the future.
The second Forrester survey asks CIOs why they have adopted at least one Web 2.0 tech (blog, wiki, RSS, tags, podcasts, networking) why they did & those that haven't, why they didn't. For the takers, greater efficiency & competitive pressure were given as the top 2 reasons. Now "greater efficiency" is the answer an exec gives when they don't really know why they did something. It's the macho business equivalent of saying "a big boy done it and ran away". Competitive pressure means "another CIO told me he was doing it over drinks at a strip bar one night and it sounded cool". Interestingly the argument made by Web 2.0 devotees - that employers who used Web 2.0 tech in their lives outside work would demand its implementation inside - is only ranked fifth as a reason.
For the passers, the top reasons were no current need for the technology & more critical problems to solve. Translation: "Wuh?" & "Go away".
The McKinsey report involves more executives & has data weighted in all kinds of fancy ways - as all McKinsey surveys do (I bet these guys love their spreadsheets almost as much as me). The McKinsey survey defines Web 2.0 to include the usual blogs/wikis/RSS/networking/podcasts but then it morphs a bit. Tagging is bagged but Mash-ups, P2P networking (which seems to be bitTorrent but also might include virtualisation & grid computing), Web Services & Collective Intelligence are included. This latter includes "common databases for sharing knowledge" - which sounds suspiciously like 1st Gen KM to me. This shopping list is a little outside the standard E2.0 list but I suppose these guys are from McKinsey - it's all computers talking to each other isn't it, hang on is that my Blackberry going off?
Web Services, Collective Intelligence & P2P Networking are by far & away the most popular with more saying they have them (or plan to soon) than don't. The others are much less popular. Unsurprisngly the top 3 are seen as more immediately relevant to existing business issues with Web Services streaking away like a sprinter on steroids & SOAP.
From a regional perspective, China stands out for its interest in collective intelligence & social networks and India wants to spend more money.
Churning through all this data, I am left with the impression that execs know what they like and that's stuff they understand and can see an immediate application for. And there's nothing wrong with that. The E2.0 path will be a rocky one - but hey, you knew that already didn't you?
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2 comments:
Yes, it will take quite a while ...
Reminds me of the time a year or so ago when I sat on a plane next to a young (23 - 25 ?) tech guy on a McKinsey team on the way to their next assignment. We got to talking about blogs and wikis and their usefulness in information exchange, competitive intelligence, knowledge construction, etc. and I must say, he was spectacularly uninformed.
However, that was a year ago.
I think your point about the IT decision makers remaining comfortable in current mental models is spot-on. Interaction is messy, and they know how to do one-way info flows ... their business logic hasn't yet grokked how to factor it in and put it to use.
Jon - Thanks for coming. I actually think the IT decision makers are right to remain within those frameworkds for now. I would not bet my IT budget on Web 2.0 tech. But then the beauty is you don't have to. This stuff is cheap as chips compared to an ERP system.
Certain people rise to the top of corporations. And these people are rarely in the Web 2.0 mould (with certain with very high profile exceptions).
Fortunately, I am a very patient man.
If you were going to pitch something Web 2.0 to a C-level exec : i. What would it be? & ii. What would you say?
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