I’ve had for some time now the vague sense that the iPhone, Twitter, Gmail, Googling, Facebook, Wikipedia, Delicious, and other runaway successes are trying to tell us something about how we want to use technology in our lives and in our work, and if we enterprise technologists listen carefully we’ll hear what that something is.
I started jotting down some comparisons based on what I’ve seen, read, and experienced for myself, then realized that I was identifying patterns
I’m dividing my 2.0 vs. 1.0 comparisons into two groups. First is a set of patterns where 2.0 is just better than 1.0
Second is a set in which 2.0 is an alternative or addition to 1.0, not a replacement for it.
the primary goal of enterprise IT is not to delight users, but rather to increase the value of the company. But do these two outcomes have to be in conflict?
The biggest challenge will probably be to get corporate technologists (a group that includes IT departments, vendors, and consultants) to stop thinking like monopolists that can dictate tools to users with great confidence that, because of the lack of alternatives, they’ll get used.
I can think of four negative consequences of ignoring these patterns and continuing to act like a 1.0 enterprise technology monopolist.
enterprises will deploy technologies that are disliked and/or not used
employees will use ’stealth IT’ and any knowledge / information captured therein will not be retained by the enterprise
employees and customers will leave because of their frustration with poor enterprise technologies
the enterprise will be handicapped or crippled – less productive, innovative, collaborative, agile, ‘wise,’ foresightful, insightful, transparent, clear than it could be otherwise, or than its competitor is.