THE
InformationA D V I S O R
A Quarterly Supplement Exclusively for The Information Advisor Readers
w w w. i a - b l o g . c o m
Understanding the Vendors and Your Role
in the Enterprise 2.0 Organization
W
elcome, Information Advisor
readers, to the first issue of our
newly redirected and renamed
quarterly supplement, Enterprise 2.0:
Managing Knowledge in Your Or-
ganization. As we explained in the
final supplement of 2008, the thrust
of what we had covered in our
Knowledge Management supplements
would largely be the same: how or-
ganizations can better find and help
staff access sources of knowledge and
expertise throughout the enterprise.
That said, we will be focusing on En-
terprise 2.0 collaboration tools and the
marketplace, and we have renamed the
supplement to reflect that refinement
of our focus.
As we began thinking about how
best to cover this fast-changing space,
one of the biggest issues we felt
should be tackled was the matter of
Enterprise 2.0 vendors. Over the last
few years, scores of software, intranet,
document management, knowledge
management, and of course free web-
sites have begun offering what they
bill as Enterprise 2.0 solutions. But
what really is an Enterprise 2.0 vendor?
What differentiates each vendor? How
does one go about finding and choos-
ing the right vendor? And if Enterprise
2.0 is all about using simple and free
Web 2.0-like collaboration tools (blogs,
wikis, forums, etc.), isn’t an Enterprise
2.0 vendor an oxymoron? In other
words, isn’t the whole point of 2.0 to
offer people the chance to collaborate
™
and connect on their own, at little or
no cost, without top-down directives?
A good deal of our research into
these issues ended up pointing to
work done by Gil Yehuda, a former
analyst at Forrester Research. Up until
early February, Yehuda had been the
firm’s senior analyst of information and
knowledge management, located in
Forrester’s headquarters in Cambridge,
Mass. We decided a good way to get a
broad overview and some direction
about Enterprise 2.0 vendors would be
to talk to Yehuda directly, which we
did in an extensive telephone inter-
view. Here is an edited summary of
our discussion.
There are typically
two ways Enterprise 2.0
tools are introduced—and
both have problems.
Q. Let’s start by having you describe
how you distinguish between the
collaboration facilitated by Web 2.0
and Enterprise 2.0, and how this
definition affects how to think
about Enterprise 2.0 vendors.
A. Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 are
different; the use of Web 2.0 tools on
the internet allows for frivolity and
anonymity. Although there’s a lot of
Vo l u m e 1 3 , N o . 1 • M a r c h 2 0 0 9
great content out there on Web 2.0
sites, it’s not all reliable, relevant, or
appropriate for most workplaces. But
in Enterprise 2.0—and by this I mean
the application of the user-generated
and socially mediated content for
internal company collaboration—there
are key differences.
First of all, the conversations have
to be related to work priorities.
Second, there are organizational moti-
vators that can help or hurt adoption.
Think of it this way—your boss and
boss’s boss see what you say. This
changes the conversation. And there
are other differences too. The technol-
ogy you use to facilitate the conversa-
tion in the enterprise will have to work
within other technology constraints.
Otherwise, you might be creating a
new island of information, making
things even more difficult to find.
Q. But can’t Web 2.0 sites and tools
be introduced into the enterprise
and then become Enterprise 2.0?
Isn’t this how it evolves?
A. Actually, there are typically two
ways in which these tools enter the
enterprise—and both have problems.
One entry point is the tech populist
who has some problem or issue to
confront in his or her day-to-day work,
who says, “I’m going to find something
that works.” This person doesn’t check
with anyone and doesn’t care if what
he gets conforms to standards. And if
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Understanding the Vendors and Your Role ...
there is a fee, he may even put it on
his personal credit card. The advan-
tage of this approach is that this per-
son will probably find something that
works. The disadvantage is that doing
this delays the inevitable question of
what is going to be done with the new
content generated. And since the tech
populist may well be off to another job
sometime soon, he probably doesn’t
even care.
The other entry point is through
centralized IT; those people figure out
how a certain tool could work with
the organization’s portal or intranet
strategy, then approach their familiar
vendors and find out what they have
to offer. On the positive side, such a
strategy breeds less confusion, solu-
tions will have scalability and security,
and there is an existing customer/
supplier relationship. But the down-
side is that not only will the new tool
perhaps be not as nimble or tailored
as the free or cheap one picked up by
the tech populist, but the fact is that
IT is rarely a good steward for intro-
ducing collaboration. Company staff
members usually see IT as techies
who can get things to work, but who
are not necessarily effective com-
municators. So why should IT be the
driver of the organization’s communi-
cation strategies?
This is a dichotomy. Firms need to
face a choice of allowing tech pop-
ulism, going with IT’s solutions, or
coming up with a compelling alter-
native. Further confusing this situa-
tion is that the vendors themselves
aren’t always sure who they should
be selling to: whether to approach IT
and stress system integration, or to go
to the tech populist and tout ease of
use and the benefits of software as a
service.
Q. How should one approach select-
ing the right tools for Enterprise
2.0?
A. Remember, the first question
should be about people, not technolo-
gy. So ask who is going to use these
tools and who needs to be involved
in the decision making. Then you have
2 I Enterprise 2.0
to figure out what you really want
to get out of these tools. Part of the
challenge here is that there are many
technology choices—too many choices.
So you have to start eliminating the
choices that are not going to work for
you, for the people you are looking to
help, and for the objectives you are
trying to meet.
Let me give you an example: A key
decision to make up front is whether
you should go with software as a serv-
ice or whether you want an on-site,
installed solution. That will help par-
tition the playing field, as some solu-
tions support on-site installations, some
are software-as-a-service models, and
some can do both. By choosing a de-
ployment model, great! You’ve elimi-
nated about half the options, making it
easier to get to a decision.
Q. Who, though, should be making
these decisions?
A. These decisions should be going
through the CIO or an enterprise archi-
tecture group, but sometimes it does
not happen that way. Companies need
to have policies around software as a
solution, asking questions such as
what the value proposition is; whether
there will be integration; what kind of
security is there. There is a worksheet
in one of my reports (“Seven Steps
to Selecting a High-Value Enterprise
Wiki”) that will help with this decision
process.
This also has to be part of the long-
term strategy: What do we want to
accomplish with all of this? Is it just file
sharing for a small group? Or should
we have a big collaboration plan,
where we might want IM, video shar-
ing, and a presence engine? You don’t
want to do things piecemeal and have
small decisions negatively affect the
long term. So you want to be strategic.
But there’s a balance too—you don’t
want to be “too strategic.” By this I
mean you can’t plan, for instance,
what technology choices you will have
in 10 years.
And you can’t—and shouldn’t—just
shut down tech populism. What you
can do is leverage its spirit of innova-
tion and exploration, protect it, and
then learn from it. So, when you dis-
cover that there are some unofficial 2.0
tools in the enterprise, tell those peo-
ple: That’s great, we’ll let you do it,
we’ll learn something about it, and
we’ll fix the parts that don’t work right
and keep the parts that do.
Taking this approach will also help
your firm better ensure that it will be
well-positioned to be an innovator as
technologies, software, and methods
evolve over time.
Q. Within the Enterprise 2.0 ven-
dor space, then, what is the pri-
mary way we can differentiate
among the vendors?
A. One key way is to look at how
the products enable collaboration,
which is typically either from a content
approach or from a people approach.
For the former, vendors get people to
collaborate around content; that con-
tent could be wikis, for instance, or file
sharing of documents or calendars and
tasks, etc. The focus is on the “stuff”;
people’s names are hidden and not
important. But for other tools, such as
social networks, the focus is on the
people themselves. In these cases, the
solution connects you to other people,
not just to other information.
A primary purpose of a corporate
social networking tool is to break
through the organization’s hierarchy.
For instance, maybe your organization
says that you have one manager, with
two other reports, and that’s how
you’re supposed to work. But in reali-
ty, you may work with that manager
on one type of project, but someone
else for other projects, and so on. In
order to animate those truer work rela-
tionships, an Enterprise 2.0 social net-
work can surface and make active
those networks that go beyond the
organizational structure.
By the way, it’s important to point
out that when we are talking about
connecting to others in an enterprise
social network, it’s not about being a
“friend” of the other person, just that
these are people with whom you work
on various projects. There may be a
Facebook feel to the network, but the
reasons for who your connections are
and how and why you connect are all
work-related. So even though these
 was a request and a response on the
Relevant Forrester Reports topic. This is proactive research services,
by Gil Yehuda on Enterprise 2.0 using Enterprise 2.0 to provide value.

“Seven Steps to Selecting a High Value Enterprise Wiki,” December 2008 ($1,999) Q. That all sounds great, but isn’t
www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,47563,00.html it the case that the technology it-
self is now doing this work auto-
“What It Takes to Foster a Culture of Collaboration,” January 2009 ($749)
matically? You know, such-and-such
www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,46414,00.html
are the most commented upon
“Forrester TechRadar for I&KM Pros: Enterprise Web 2.0 For Collaboration,” blog posts, people who read x also
November 2008 ($1,999) chose to read y, etc.? Do we really
www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,46894,00.html still need a person to do this?
A. Well what you say is true, but we
tools are inspired by purely social who is asking questions on the discus- still need the people. The reason has
activities, when you bring them to sion forums, and which people tag their to do with the network effect, and the
work they take on a new purpose. profiles with subjects they are interest- difference between Web 2.0 and
Sometimes people are resistant to this ed in. Research Services groups have Enterprise 2.0. On the internet there
technology because they perceive that access to tons of information, and they are millions of tags, Facebook friends,
this will be frivolous, but we have seen need to participate in the new places blogs, etc., but within the corporation
many real-world business cases, in where conversation is taking place. you are dealing with just thousands, or
many industries, where this kind of This will raise the value of the conver- maybe just hundreds, of those kinds of
technology makes a huge difference in sation and bring more visibility to the elements. So the network effect does
the way the business operates. value that research services provide. If not really work there, at least at this
they are watching and participating in point. So you still need people to push
Q. We’ve talked about IT people, the conversation, they can make the it along and make those connections
tech populists, the CIO, and the connections between people within for others.
enterprise architecture team, but the organization. Facilitating an under- Eventually, though, while corpora-
what about the organization’s in- standing of this rapidly created, on- tions won’t get bigger, their boundaries
formation experts—the corporate the-fly knowledge is what is going to will become more permeable, and
librarians and information profes- give the corporate librarian importance. then they will find the value of the net-
sionals? What do you see as their The risk to corporate librarians is work through their extended guilds
role in Enterprise 2.0? that they could end up being the own- and communities of practices that go
A. Let me put this in a broader con- ers of the traditional, top-down, mass- between companies.
text. We all know that some firms have mediated, one-way content like the But the big point, when it comes to
questioned the value of their corporate reports and other static information corporate librarians and Enterprise 2.0,
librarians, since people do their own sources that don’t last long anymore, is that there is an imperative to be rec-
research on Google. But another instead of this live conversation that ognized as the social networker, the
important and relevant challenge to populates Enterprise 2.0. Personally, I person who adds value to the conver-
librarians is whether old knowledge is have always found that the real value sation by connecting the right person
interesting today. Knowledge is being of the company librarian has been not to the right content. And the onus is on
created at such a fast rate that its value to find me stuff but to be a connector the librarian to be assertive, make
is expiring at an even faster rate. and tell me who else has been looking what they are doing visible, and make
Librarians’ traditional role had been for the same information. clear to upper management and the
to search archives, reports, and data- I’ll give you an example of the kind rest of the organization the value that
bases to find stuff that “was.” But older of service that really makes a differ- they are adding. Enterprise 2.0 is what
information is increasingly less rele- ence. One company I know rolled out corporate librarians need to look at
vant and useful. What’s replacing it is a social network, and many employees now to keep their jobs.
Enterprise 2.0. tagged themselves with topics they care On the topic of job loss and the
Enterprise 2.0 is of great importance about. When the corporate librarian ful- current economic situation, this is ac-
to corporate librarians and all research fills a research request, she sends an tually the perfect time for the corpo-
services functions. Why? Because they email to all the people who tagged rate librarian to take on this connector
have access to who is asking the ques- themselves with that topic. For exam- role. That’s because when people get
tions. Not only are they the stewards of ple, when someone asked a specific laid off, other staffers lose their “go
the internal information economy, but question about cloud computing, she to” people. Someone needs to step
they have insight into the players in prepared the answer and then notified in and help people in the organiza-
the economy. They should see who is all the people who had the tag “Cloud tion learn who their new critical con-
creating content on the internal wiki, Computing” in their profiles that there nectors are. ■

Vol. 13, No. 1: March 2009 I 3

 New Report Finds Lack
of Understanding of Enterprise 2.0
W
e recently came across a fasci-
nating—and free—comprehen-
sive study on Enterprise 2.0,
published in 2008 by AIIM (www
.aiim.org), newly named as the “enter-
prise content management organiza-
tion” located in Silver Spring, Md. The
report, which runs 80 pages, is the
result of discussions with more than
400 Enterprise 2.0 users. A few of its
key findings follow:
■ 44% of respondents indicated
that Enterprise 2.0 is imperative
or significant to corporate goals
and objectives.
■ Another 27% positioned
Enterprise 2.0 as having average
impact on business goals and
success.
■ 74% stated they have only a
vague familiarity or no clear
understanding of Enterprise 2.0.
After reviewing the report, we were
quite impressed with the detail of this
study, and so we decided to speak
with Carl Frappaolo, one of the study’s
co-authors. Frappaolo recently left AIIM
to begin his own consulting firm, In-
formation Architected, Inc., located in
Boston. We spoke with him about the
study, his new firm, and Enterprise 2.0
in general. The following is an edited
transcript of our discussion.
Q. Tell me a little bit about Infor-
mation Architected.
A. We do market analysis and con-
duct unbiased assessments on how
organizations are doing information,
knowledge, and process management.
Q. What was the impetus behind
the AIIM study?
A. When Dan Keldsen and I joined
AIIM, Enterprise 2.0 was a topic a lot
of people were talking about but not
really understanding. We wanted to start
a market research group, and we knew
Andy McAfee [a leader in the field and
4 I Enterprise 2.0
the person credited with coining the
term Enterprise 2.0], so we thought we
really needed to put a stake in the
ground and get this started.
Q. What did you think was the most
important finding in the report?
A. For me, it was that culture really
matters—more than age. Dan and I
used to hear—and we still hear—that
these kinds of social tools are really for
the younger generation. But we found
that age didn’t have much to do with
it. What really mattered for success
and adoption was the inclination of an
organization to embrace knowledge
management, innovation, and collabo-
ration. In fact, the champions and
users of Enterprise 2.0 were primarily
Baby Boomers who worked in organi-
zations that were open to this.
Q. Was there anything that you
found that was surprising?
A. I was somewhat surprised at the
number of mashups that were being
done in companies.
Q. Can one allow Enterprise 2.0 to
grow from the bottom up organi-
cally, or do you need to bring in
outside software vendors?
A. If you think about this strategi-
cally, and your focus is on sharing
knowledge, you will need to do some
of this top down. But that does not
mean that bottom up can’t help you
change the culture. IT can establish
some best practices regarding what
people are already bringing into your
organization.
An important finding in the report
was the degree to which content that’s
being created in Enterprise 2.0 is not
▲ ▲ ▲
being managed. People aren’t realizing
that despite its ease of use, you are
creating official business content,
which could mean the need to get
record managers and even attorneys
involved.
Q. How do you see the relationship
between Enterprise 2.0 and knowl-
edge management?
A. Enterprise 2.0 is a family of tech-
nologies that facilitate building knowl-
edge management into an organiza-
tion. It was a response to KM and its
failings, meaning that those solutions
were expensive and difficult to imple-
ment, while these new technologies
make capturing explicit and implicit
knowledge much easier. A great exam-
ple is the wiki.
Q. Where do you see librarians and
info pros fitting in?
A. They certainly can have an im-
pact. People are creating content that
is potentially important and should be
discoverable. Free form is great, but
it sounds better than it actually is—
people like a little bit of structure.
Typically you want someone to look
over all the stuff that’s being created
and to figure out things like how it
should be tagged, categorized, and
marketed internally.
Download the study for free, in PDF,
below (you will need to register):
www.aiim.org/Research/MarketIQ/
Enterprise-2.0-Agile-Emergent-Inte
grated.aspx ■
Next quarter, we will provide sources and
sites for locating and classifying key
Enterprise 2.0 vendors whose products
you might consider for your organization.
Quarterly Supplement
is published by
Information Today, Inc.
143 Old Marlton Pike
Medford, NJ 08055
Vol. 13, No. 1: March 2009 I