Wikis, Blogs, RSS Aim for the Workplace – And about Time!

Tags: Web2Expo, Web2.0Expo, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, InfoWorld, Juan Carlos Perez, Innovation, Social Computing Adoption, Technology, Processes, People, Cultural Changes

As you may have been reading already during the course of the last few hours, yesterday the Web 2.0 Expo got started with some incredible buzz about how Web 2.0 is eventually starting making its way into the Enterprise and become eventually Enterprise 2.0. And of all of the different weblog posts and news articles that have been shared thus far there has been one that caught my eye and which I thought would be worth while mentioning over here as well, since it touches base on a couple of weblog entries I have shared in the past. It has been shared over at InfoWorld by Juan Carlos Perez and is titled Wikis, blogs, RSS aim for the workplace.

As I have mentioned above, the main reason why I have found that particular article interesting is because it captures some of the main themes behind the Web 2.0 Expo event and which touch base on a couple of weblog posts I have shared in the past. Basically, how Web 2.0 should certainly not only become the base for Enterprise 2.0, but how it should not just stop just there. It should also be able to address some of the potential concerns that the corporate world has got about Web 2.0 ("areas like availability, performance, scalability and security"), address them and fix them, but always starting from the point of view where Web 2.0 left things: driving innovation at a rampant pace without having to necessarily reinvent the wheel!

Here are a couple of gems from the article that Juan Carlos put together and which clearly set the path to move forward with the adoption of social computing within the corporate world:

"They also point out that blogs can be effective marketing tools if they are used wisely, while syndicated feeds can improve communications that aren’t efficiently handled by e-mail." (Emphasis mine)

Or this other one:

""E-mail comes and goes and we wanted a place to collect and build," Suding said. "Web 2.0 is about employee collaboration and empowerment and self service. That’s what we’re achieving with the wiki."" (Emphasis mine)

As you can see from the above quotes, things may not be as difficult as what they may seem initially, since more and more businesses are starting to explore the world of social networking in order to help knowledge workers share their knowledge and collaborate with others a lot easier while at work. I am sure that it will be with events like the Web 2.0 Expo that will help move things forward towards the success of such adoption. However, we may still face another challenge, which may not have to do anything at all with the tools, nor the processes, but with the culture itself.

Will knowledge workers be able to let off go most of their own knowledge and share with others when in plenty of businesses out there "knowledge is (still) power"? What will it take for knowledge workers to let off go their knowledge and help contribute? Will social computing be up for the job and allow for that cultural change? Well, I surely hope so, and I will certainly be hoping to share some of those different insights here in this weblog as time goes by. For the time being though, time now to continue with that catch up of the Web 2.0 Expo happenings and see what people have been up to.