I’m a little late in finding this one from a few weeks ago, but the content is relevant. Boston.com reports on the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Bean Town last month. Here’s a snippet from the article;
“If vendors have their way, a second wave of collaborative technologies … including wikis, blogs, videos, and mashups, platforms and features borrowed from social-networking sites like MySpace … soon will wash onto computers in the workplace.
Such interactive technologies are part of a larger trend known as Web 2.0 that has taken root in the consumer space. They have the potential to transform commerce, simplifying communications between employees, suppliers, and customers…”
What excites me is the seemingly endless depth of possibilities here. The act of globalization isn’t just a business phenomenon … it’s a social and societal transformation!
As a contrarian voice in the article, Thomas Davenport , a professor of information technology at Babson College in Wellesley states;
“I have no problem with organizations experimenting with Web 2.0 technology,” Davenport said. “But most of the benefits of these technologies are social rather than business-oriented. And even when businesses are using them, nobody’s saying anything about what kind of ROI (return on investment) they’ve been able to get on them.”
Are you friggin’ kidding me?! That’s like saying we shouldn’t utilize other common “social” business interactions like meetings or brainstorming sessions or teleconferences … Gosh, I’m not sure we should do those things because we can’t measure the ROI (sic)!
Good gravy, if business as a whole wasn’t “social” (rather than business oriented) it wouldn’t be as fun or profitable. It’s about people Mr. Davenport, not always about ROI. The old adage was “watch your pennies and the dollars will watch themselves.” I’d like to coin a new phrase; “Watch your people and your ROI will watch itself.”
