1.) What is your name?

Dirk Röhrborn

2.) Who are you and what are you doing?

I am Co-founder and managing director of Communardo Software GmbH. At Communardo I am responsible for the software development of enterprise 2.0 solutions (based on platforms like Atlassian Confluence and Microsoft Sharepoint) as well as our enterprise microblogging online services Communote.com.

3.) How did you get to the E2.0 topic?

Enterprise 2.0 has been my main area of interest right from university - without the ‘2.0′ name of course. As a student I developed collaborative document management and customer relationship management solutions based on the groupware Lotus Notes at firms like Price Waterhouse and IBM Germany. In my first job I helped to build a team of consultants for knowledge management at a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom. In 2001 we started off Communardo. Since then, our main topics have always been communication, collaboration and knowledge sharing solutions for business customers.

4.) What is your understanding of the core concept of the Enterprise 2.0 idea?

For me, enterprise 2.0 stands for the combination of two fundamentally important concepts: an open-minded collaborative company culture and the widespread use of social media in business. In both terms we are rather talking about paradigm shifts in the business world than looking at specific methodologies or tools.

5.) What are the main potentials of the Enterprise 2.0 idea?

An open-minded corporate culture unleashes the creative potential and physical strength of employees and stakeholders within a company. Web 2.0 or social media tools like wikis, blogs, social networks or microblogs help them to communicate and collaborate better and more efficient to achieve their targets. While the industrial revolution was all about making the labour workers more productive, enterprise 2.0 is all about making knowledge workers more efficient and foster engagement and self-fulfillment at the same time.

6.) What are the main challenges and threats of the Enterprise 2.0 idea?

The main challenge IMHO is to find a way to change an existing corporate culture towards the right direction, i.e. from a command-and-control to a participatory style. From a technical perspective, the main challenge is to build tools that are as simple and ergonomic as possible. Especially the last two issues have been our main concern in software development recently

7.) Please give us three tags that describe your person and work best?

enterprise, communication, collaboration

8.) Please give us three links to articles/contributions that describe your views best?

• Wissensmanagement im Enterprise 1.0 vs. Enterprise 2.0
• Der spannende Weg zum Intranet 2.0: Firmen-Wiki als Teamweb mit Atlassian Confluence
• Enterprise Microblogging: ein neuer Hype? Ja und Nein.

9.) Please give us three names of colleagues that you would refer to as brother-in-spirit?

1. Joachim Niemeier
2. Frank Schönefeld
3. Martin Koser