During the last week I was pushing the finalization of the first draft of the programm for the Enterprise 2.0 SUMMIT (still waiting for some feedback from my advisory board!). We are still far away of having a complete speaker’s list but we have thoroughly discussed the topics for the conference (you might want to have a sneak preview at looking at this Google Doc!) - as this is the foundation to select the right cases and speakers. While researching a little for this matter I came along an older post of Susan Scrupski from the ITINSIDER blog: “Reality Check 2.0” - that she wrote in Nov last year as the on-going economic downturn had not yet reached the sentiments of the E2.0 evangelists in the US. It’s a very good analysis of the situation esp. the comparison towards former IT development like the emergence of BPM, Outsourcing or ERP during the economic crisis of the late 80s and early 90s:

Now, no disrespect to my late GenX and GenY readers and friends, but Boomers have some experience here that may prove helpful. Those of us who were engaged in the technology workforce in the late 80s and early 90s had to move fast to help our customers cut costs and work smarter. For me, that meant the birth of Business Process Reengineering and Outsourcing. For others, it meant the birth of Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP. Now, you could argue whether any or all of these initiatives actually delivered the results intended, but the fact remains: lots of software developers and consultants made a huge market in downtime adversity.

From there she argues by citation of some other E2.0 thought leaders as Mike Gotta and Stowe Boyd that E2.0 could be a chance to lead towards “business transformation” (as mentioned by Mike Gotta) or to “reinvent the Enterprise IT” (phrased by Stowe Boyd) if focused on the bottom line. Mike Gotta answered to this in a later post that it’ll be “time for ‘pragmatic due diligence’ when it comes to social software”.

As from my observations for Europe and esp. Germany I can firmly support the line that some E2.0 enthusiast need to get more realistic on what can be achieved with Enterprise 2.0. A lately discussion (unfortunately only in German) in our XING Enterprise 2.0 group shows how theoretical and therefore “soft” the discussion is about the outcome of Enterprise 2.0. But then I also have to adjust that as Europe and esp. Germany is always lagging behind the adoption of new web-based business ideas and esp. Germans are more critical about innovation the hype about new approaches never reaches that far as in the US - therefore we are probably already closer to the bottom line. But still the discussions about the potentials regarding Enterprise 2.0 are not anymore concrete than in the US. And a lot of people are looking for the savior when it comes towards Enterprise 2.0.

The last two Enterprise 2.0 FORUMs have shown that there are some reoccuring characteristics of sucessful perceived E2.0 projects that - from a qualitative perspective - might turn out to be the critical success factors. In regards to our on-going discussions about the topics of the Enterprise 2.0 programm I would therefore like to make some summing-up on these aspects:

• Competitive ways towards Adoption: Mike Gotta brings it towards a nice point: “IT organizations usually follow a Plan-Build-Run framework that often means Plan-Build-Runaway after the system is deployed. But since many social applications are not transactional or process-specific in a traditional sense [..] it means we need to establish methods around adoption practices to gauge how people really get work done and how work models change as a result of social applications.”  IMHO social applications always rely on the momentum of the interaction of a critical mass therefore the good old P-B-R will tend to be less successful than more hands-on approaches like “think big and start small”. For this I always like to refer towards a conversation with JP Rangaswami at reboot last year (that I have unfortunately not have registered!). He explained to me that he is quite fine with people installing and trying out new applications. Choosing the right technology is a competitive approach - the winner is the solution that has the biggest impact and critical mass.
• Leveraging the power of feedback: At the last Enterprise 2.0 FORUM Frank Schönefeld brought up a nice systematization for the feedback mechanisms of social applications. It structures the benefits of feedback on five levels (from the more concrete to less concrete) :  “social creation” (benefits from the collective intelligence and actions in creating information, cross-links etc), direct feedback (benefits from cross-linking people and information by trackbacks, comments, bookmarks and feed subscriptions), systemic feedback (benefits from new relations/interconnections between people and information) and social feedback (benefits from gaining positive feedback, authority and acknowledgement). So IMHO the success of projects tends to relate to the realized level of these feedback mechanisms.
• Changing organizational patterns: At CeBIT there has been a nice panel discussion on the “Future Workplace” including the above mentioned Frank Schönefeld as well as Dion Hinchcliffe, Willms Buhse and Philip Vanhoutte. Moderated by Sascha Alexander (Computerwoche.de) they talked about the changes that are deriving to companies as Enterprise 2.0 and GenX/GenY are entering the workspace. The focal point of the discussion led to new organizational patterns (more remote, open and collaborative, project-based, interdisciplinary working) that have to be created within the enterprises to lever the potentials of Enterprise 2.0.
• Being Complementary and Integrative: This is probably common sense for all IT-based activities but from the critics regarding the E2.0 hype paroles this need to be said: No one can run a business only with social applications - social applications are a supplement and enhancement for existing information technology. Therefore it needs to be integrate at some point with business applications to be business-critical in the long run.

Well - these are my 2 cents on “Enterprise 2.0″ and the economic crisis. BTW - I guess I will choose the title of this post as the title of the introduction panel for the Enterprise 2.0 SUMMIT. As this discussion might be a good start for the conference.

Underneath the curtain of a static web announcement lots of content-related discussions regarding the program of the Enterprise 2.0 SUMMIT 09 are happening. From a small circle we have now extended our advisory and feedback board to a number of well-known Enterprise 2.0 experts including (in alphabetical order of their lastname) Lee Bryant, Willms Buhse, Bertrand Dupperin, James Governor, Dion Hinchcliffe, Martin Koser, Mark Masterson, Joachim Niemeier, JP Rangaswami, Frank Schönefeld, Luis Suarez, David Terrar, Thomas Vander Wal and Simon Wardley. After this preparation we will enter a more public discussion about the to-be-discussed topics as well as speakers and panelists to get involved at the Enterprise 2.0 SUMMIT - as the idea of the E2.0 SUMMIT on Oct 6-8th is to represent a community and expertise hub for the European Enterprise 2.0 community. This means we want to reflect the common E2.0 discussions esp. from a European viewpoint and to attract big parts of the E2.0 industry members.

A already finalized thought about the E2.0 SUMMIT is the main emphasis on structuring the discussion around the “ROI” (and its synonyms like ROC, RONI, metrics, value/benefits) question of Enterprise 2.0. And we found our own notion for it - we want to discuss the “collaborative performance”. Therefore I already invited Kjetil Kristensen, a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). He holds a PhD from the Department of Engineering Design and Materials at NTNU, and is focusing on collaborative performance in dispersed teams. He will give us an insight talk to his research results.

But the idea is not to stop the discussion on the conceptional and theoretical level. As Joachim Niemeier has put it in our internal discussion:

“bridging ’strategy’ and ‘implementation’ by modern (management) thinking is critical. [Discussion the performance and metrics of E2.0 .. ] we should at least start with the classical candidates: Balances Scorecard, Maturity models, (European) Excellent Models, Staged Approaches. Even more: we could organize a ‘metrics workshop’, we could have a look at ‘Wiki visualisation’ and so on.”

Does anybody has some further practical insights on these approaches?

Some other question that is still driving the advisory and feedback circle is the discussion about to what extend we have to discuss the infrastructual convergence and commoditization of Cloud Computing, Unified Communications and Collaborative Systems at the event. If you know Simon Wardley, you know his comments about this in advance - as he argues:

“There is a strong connection between E2.0 and Cloud Computing but it is in the underlying themes.”

My question is not the relevance of the underlying developments in general but the relevance to the corporate world in continental Europe. As I see most of the E2.0 interested corporate people at the very beginning of the E2.0 (r)evolution, I don’t (yet) see this aspect as a more than 1 or 2 sessions covering topic. Or can anybody give me some counter-arguments?

And while we are discussing about E2.0 services - I also have the question about the importance of a “launch pad” for E2.0 services at the event. The boundaries of the enterprise in terms of integrating external application in business processes are very tight IMHO - in continental Europe. But as an industry event we need to leverage the chances for the service provider … so yes or no?

I would be very happy if I could stir up the discussions about the program with this post - so I am eager to read your feedback.

1.) What is your name?

Gil Yehuda

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

I’m an independent consultant – which is a fancy way of saying that I’m in between jobs right now. Most recently I was the Forrester Analyst who covered Enterprise 2.0 for Information and Knowledge Management clients.

Prior to that I was an Enterprise Architect at Fidelity Investments, where I implemented E2.0 tools and behaviors in some of their larger business units.

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

When I was an Enterprise Architect, I realized that I had tons of responsibility but no authority. I also discovered that no matter how much I knew about my field, there was always someone who knew more than me. So rather than trying to be the smartest and the most powerful architect – something I knew I’d never be – I chose to be the most helpful and socially-connected architect. I put together a virtual organization using social networking tools and this transformed the relationships between the development, architecture, and engineering groups. We proved to be more agile and less expensive. Then other groups sought my help to copy the model for their initiatives. Later I learned that I was following the E2.0 themes, so I dove in to learn more about the field that I was instinctually drawn to.

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

At its core, E2.0 is a shift in mindset and behavior. In many cases, the new behaviors need to be supported by new tools.

I see three phases to the E2.0 idea. In the first, organizations realize that facilitating knowledge exchange between employees who are connected by weak-tie relationships is an essential part of running a modern scalable business. In the second phase, Enterprises reach outside of the corporate walls for cooperation with customers and partners. In the third, we lose the name “E2.0” and just say “this is who we work with and how we work.”

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

The success of many modern corporations is based primarily on the effective use of their knowledge economy. Their knowledge economy is composed of knowledge, people, and the effective exchange of knowledge and people. The E2.0 idea seeks to provide companies with the tools and behaviors that facilitate a knowledge economy using the proven successes of the Web 2.0 Internet. In the most basic sense, E2.0 is not an optional set of tools that companies can choose to budget for, or defer. Businesses will eventually adopt the behaviors that E2.0 supports at its core, or will fail
to compete with those who do.

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

I see three main challenges to the idea:
1. Timing is essential to the success of an E2.0 initiative. Most organizations start too late.
2. E2.0 must acknowledge that companies have to follow rules, regulations, and risk management processes. Unfortunately, these rule are often used to stifle innovation rather protect interests.
3. Lack of technology integration is a barrier. Companies want E2.0 tools to fit within their infrastructure and leverage their existing investments in enterprise software.

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

Insightful, Collaborative, Passionate

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

In addition to the papers that I wrote for Forrester clients on the Forrester site, I’d include these three articles, one of which I wrote:

• Predicting the battle over collaboration infrastructure in 2009
• Forrester on the Future of Enterprise 2.0 Technologies
• The Rules of Engagement in Community

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

What a difficult question — only three names?! There are so many. OK, I’ll try.

1. Jessica Lipnack
2. Bill Ives
3. Rachel Happe

On CeBIT friday - right after the Enterprise 2.0 SUMMIT Meetup - Dion Hinchcliffe hosted the first european Enterprise 2.0 TV show. On the panel there were:

• Coremedia’s Sören Stamer
• Frank Schönefeld of T-Systems MMS
• Craig Hepburn of Opentext (see my interview with him)
• Aidan Troy from IBM
• Peter Fischer from Microsoft and
• Steve Bjorg from Mindtouch.

Quite an impressing list of experts and I am looking forward to checking out the video recordings on the Dion’s Enterprise 2.0 TV show. Here’s a nice picture of the relaxed wrapping-up after doing the show:

This post-recording picture by Dion Hinchcliffe - standing in the background is Martin Lindner, see his expert profile here, talking with Frank Schönefeld is Kai Nehm (picture above by him)

1.) What is your name?

Martin Lindner

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

I am a consulting researcher, or a researching consultant for “Enterprise 2.0″ and “Learning 2.0″. My field of expertise is microcontent/microinformation, and how it affects the workplace, the enterprise, and indeed the knowledge workers themselves. I’m working out concepts how new clouds, flows and feeds can be designed that help people to swim in the sea of (micro-)information?

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

I come from academic Media Studies, was a digital Web-immigrant after buying an iMac in 1999, becamea e-learning professional fundamentally frustrated with “e-learning” from the start, soon got heavily involved in the “Web 2.0″ before it got that name, then I worked four years as Principal Researcher for a small “Research Studio” that tried to develop “microlearning” and “microinformation solutions”, acting like a research-driven start-up. I did a “microcontent widget” development project there, and some Information Management consulting

From 2005 to 2008 I’ve been program chair of the “Microlearning” conference, which was all about “learning and knowing in microcontent environments” (a.k.a. “Web 2.0″, “the cloud”). We had brillant international experts in the field which came to be “enterprise 2.0″ right from the start. So I became a node and a a catalyst in an emerging international network of experts, entrepreneurs and practitioners from established organisations and enterprises.

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

E 2.0 is the effect of Web-technologies and Web-practices within the “walled garden” of the enterprise. Like the tagline of Lomdon’s brilliant E 2.0 pioneer Headshift says: “Smarter, Simpler, Social.” One may add also: smaller, cheaper, more flat, more human, network effects by default …

Right now, I see three natural starting points, from where one may end up with an E 2.0 concept: (1) needing more dynamic and effective forms of knowledge circulation; (2) needing more direct, spontaneous, authentic forms of internal and external communication; (3) needing to create more simple, intuitive and self-organizing workflows for modern knowledge/information workers. Historically, (1) and (2) were represented by “wikis and blogs”, but then, with the new wave of feed-based meta-applications, we came to learn that the whole Web 2.0 and E 2.0 thing is all about easy creation and circulation of microinformation.

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

Every enterprise, even if it is just consisting of one person, is existing on three levels: (1) on the level of management (the abstract structure of functions, roles and budgets); (2) on the level of teams/projects (the “we”-perspective); (3) on the level of the single worker (the person staring at a PC/laptop screen and wielding a mobile phone). In traditional enterprises, the connections between these three levels had been hardwired. The building was the hardware, the hardwired organisation itself was the Operating System. This has changed with PCs, with e-mail, and now, even more dramatically, with the impact of the Web. “Enterprise 2.0″ is the name for finding ways for organisations, teams and sigle workers to adapt to the resulting “Digital Climate Change”.

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

Today, most enterprises are made of structures and ideas from quite different stages of evolution. There are elements from the 1950s (the bureaucracy of “line organisations”), from the management theories of the 1980s (like project management, the fantasy of controlling everything with numbers and charts, etc.), and now, increasingly, also from the business and work philosophy of software-driven start-ups.

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

pragmatist, ethnologist, analyst

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

• On designing microinformation apps & experiences
• On micromedia convergence
• On learning in microcontent-driven environements

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

1. Lee Bryant (CEO, headshift.com), because he is the walking impersonation of E 2.0 as it should be
2. Thomas Vander Wal (InfoCloud Solutions), because of his both practical and visionary work on Info Clouds and Folksonomies
3. Teemu Arina (Dicole Oy), another E 2.0 impersonator, also a pragmatist and avant-gardist at the same time
4. and (bonus!) and Chris Langreiter (langreiter.com), because he is a brilliant exponent of the kind of humanities-informed software development that is the real driving force of Web 2.0 innovation, and will have to drive E 2.0 innovation too: “E 2.0 is not made of people. It is made of people who make software apps that make communications that make people getting sucked in.”

After occupying roundabout 80% of the screen in my interview with Vassil Mladjov of Blogtronix, I am really glad that Jeff Schick, vice president social computing of IBM is featured a bit more in the interview below:

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We talked about his views of Enterprise 2.0, the changes the social web brings to the corporate environment, working smarter with social software in the enterprise, how innovation may profit from social software enabled workspaces and how Enterprise 2.0 fits into the overall strategy of IBM. And later on Peter Schütt, key knowledge management person at IBM Deutschland GmbH is entering the room and the three of us talk about cultural differences between Europe and the U.S.

There are a lot of noteworthy things Jeff says, let me underline just some of them:

• technologies for business purposes that improve performance - that’s Enterprise 2.0
• the real E 2.0-RoI is in efficiency, competitiveness (yes, client satisfaction), and innovativeness
• we’ll see much more adoption - a lot of drivers are combining here, like e.g. digital natives entering the workforce (and people bringing capabilities they’ve learned outside into organizations)
• Jeff was talking about IBM citizens, not employees - I really like that quite a lot, it’s telling something about valuing (and respecting) the people inside your organization

ps. this was my first take of video interviewing at this year’s CeBIT, my questions sound a bit muffled, but anyway - it’s supposed to be more about the guest and so both camera and microphone were centered on Jeff.

Next part of the CeBIT interviews - up on the slate is Vassil Mladjov of Blogtronix. Like in the interview with Craig Hepburn both of us had lots of fun (notice Vassil handing me a big pack of dollars for supporting further “independent consulting and analysis” …).

With Vassil I talked about the benefits of integrated platforms vs. best-of-breed solutions, his perspective on the european market for Enterprise 2.0, how to enter this space and how smaller vendors compare to the big solutions that are present as well.

See for yourself, and please excuse that the interviewer is occupying like 80% of the screen space, when recording this it looked OK …

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Disclaimer: I was joking up there, no money was exchanged (and if it were we wouldn’t have taped it …)

During my three days at CeBIT I interviewed a number of Enterprise 2.0 people, like

• Jeff Schick and Stefan Pfeiffer of IBM
• Frank Schönefeld of T-Systems MMS
• Dirk Röhrborn of Communardo
• Craig Hepburn of OpenText
• Vassil Mladjov of Blogtronix
• Joshua Wold of Atlassian
• Wolf Ingmar Faecks of Sapient
• and, last but not least, Mark Masterson of CSC, my co-Blogger here

Björn has done a good job editing and dubbing the footage, so now here’s part 1 of the video interviews, done in preparation of the upcoming Enterprise 2.0 summit.

With Craig Hepburn of OpenText I talked about social capital, how email is for old people, locating and leveraging knowledge in organizations, how OpenText is understanding the Enterprise 2.0 market and how they’re tailoring their offerings, enjoy:

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