Enterprise 2.0: Finding success on the frontiers of social business

What is Enterprise 2.0 or Enterprise Content Management (ECM) 2.0?
Enterprise 2.0 is a “system of web-based technologies that provide rapid and agile collaboration, information sharing, emergence and integration capabilities in the extended enterprise"
Enterprise 2.0 is also known as Enterprise Web 2.0 as it leverages Web 2.0 technologies such as tagging, ratings, networking, RSS and sharing including rich Internet applications, providing software as a service, and using the web as a general platform.
Why Enterprise Content Management (ECM) 2.0 or Enterprise 2.0?
With the changing use of internet application, now a days user require and expect new ways to search, present, and share information. Users also expect more social interactions via communities and expect to have the same consumer-like experience within their work day applications.
With this changing user needs, Web 2.0 technologies is incorporated in ECM solutions and this changed phase of ECM is known as ECM 2.0 or Enterprise 2.0
What is the difference between earlier ECM technologies and ECM 2.0 technologies?
Some of the earlier generations of ECM technologies were Bulletin Board, E-Mail, Instant Messaging, Discussion Forums, Chat Rooms, videoconferencing and static web pages. These technologies represent a one-way channel approach to broad communication with little or no visibility and commonality whereas Enterprise 2.0 Technologies consist of Web-Based Technologies providing platform based approaches for creating and supporting communities, along with sharing content and processes. Implementation of these technologies is rapid and agile, providing ability to garner collective intelligence.
What is the Framework of Enterprise 2.0?
The framework of Enterprise 2.0 is described by the mnemonic SLATES, which outlines the key characteristics of Enterprise 2.0 and provides a fine grained definition of Enterprise 2.0. SLATES stands for Search, Links, Authorship, Tags, Extensions, and Signals as explained below
Search: refers that content should be subject to discoverability, so that it can be reused and leveraged.
Links: refers to the ability for creating interconnections between content, ranging from content integration to pointers, such as hypertext links.
Authorship: is largely focused on usability. The objective of authorship is that every worker should have access to Enterprise 2.0 platforms with low-barrier.
Tags: refers to the use of metatags in dynamic fashion to identify the relevancy of tagged content. Tags create a taxonomy, or several taxonomies, and can be combined to create a Folksonomy
Extensions: leverage technology to uncover patterns of user activity. These patterns are then provided as further insight into the knowledge base.
Signals: represents the use of technology to push content to interested parties. Signals make the Enterprise 2.0 system proactively collaborative.
What are the Enterprise 2.0 Technologies/Tools?
Enterprise 2.0 technologies fully support the SLATES frameworks and each technology provides different functionality. These technologies/tools are:
Mashups: Mashups are composite applications typically employing broadly accepted standards such as XML, HTML REST-style Web services, and JavaScript. These are typically APIs that enable developers to customize the Web application enabling rapid, low-cost content integration with customizable and agile user interfaces. The content aggregation can occur in real time, on the server, or on the client. For instance, user can create a mash-up between CRM system and Microsoft Virtual Earth to mark on the map and executives can see which regions are successful and which ones need a boost.
Mash-ups tend to be cheaper and lighter weight than most enterprise applications, offering an inexpensive way to develop custom applications.
Blogs: The term blog is short for Weblog. Blogs are Web-based journals that enable users to quickly communicate with a mass audience. Blogs typically deliver content in a single thread of posts (individual entries), listed in reverse chronological order. Using a multiauthor system, people can easily contribute all types of content such as text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and/or other forms of online media. They typically provide the ability to add functionality, such as search, taxonomies, and tagging. Blogs are specifically built for the Web with native features such as permalinks, hyperlinks, and trackbacks.
Wikis: A wiki is a collaborative authoring (content development) Web site. The most famous example of a wiki is the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. Wikis usually allow anyone to create new pages and to view and edit existing ones using a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor. Wikis provide integrated version control and audit trails, allowing authors to revert to a previous version of the page. Workflow can be integrated into a wiki environment.
Wiki is a quick, low-cost approach for gathering enterprise knowledge into a single area. Wikis are becoming a popular way of managing documents and information inside companies.
Really Simple Syndication (RSS): RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to syndicate content to other sites. RSS pushes information to individuals using a subscription model. Similar to subscribing to a magazine, customers, business partners and employees can subscribe to a blog or to other social tools. RSS lets people apprised of changes and it updates dynamically and automatically, bypassing the dependence on e-mail to share information. RSS content is read using software known as a reader, or aggregator. Users subscribe to a feed by entering the feed’s link into the reader or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser. The reader checks the users subscribed feeds regularly for new content, downloading any updates it finds. RSS is the most popular form of signal functionality in Enterprise 2.0. RSS is pull-based communication streams apart from push-based stream such as e-mail.
Folksonomy/Collaborative Tagging: Most of the document management or file systems use a fixed hierarchy known as taxonomy to organize the links in their directory. Enterprise 2.0 uses the concept of collaborative tagging called folksonomy which suggests that users (not just the creator of the document or file) should be allowed to enter free-form tags to describe and categorize the content they are creating, editing, or viewing. This categorization makes it easier for the document to be found by others looking for the same information at a later date.
Another key feature of tagging is tag clouds. Tag clouds allow for instant visual recognition of popular tags and distinguish them by providing the hyperlinks, clicking on these tag navigates to a page with other pages that are related to that tag.
Podcasting: Short for “iPod Broadcasting”, podcasting is the method of distributing multimedia files (e.g., audio and video) on the Web using syndication feeds. Podcasting is platform-independent. Similar to a blog, a podcast typically has one author, and provides a mass communication channel. The greatest difference is that podcasting provides a simple and agile way to capture and share multimedia-based knowledge.
Social Voting/Ranking: Social voting/ranking is a group-based approach for capturing a collective opinion. It is a form of tagging, which allows users of content to rate the quality or usefulness of a particular piece of content. Social voting and ranking tools use proprietary algorithms to calculate the overall rank or value of the content based on user-supplied input. In some cases, the algorithms do not rely on explicit input (e.g., tags), but imply popularity based on users’ interaction with the content. Social voting/ranking typically manifests itself as a feature of search and/or navigation tools, ranking content sources within a defined collection.
Social Bookmarking: Building on the concept of tagging is the idea of social bookmarking. De.licio.us and Furl are the examples of Social Bookmaking. It allows people to store, manage, and share their bookmarks on the Web. Such services usually suggest that users enter a series of tags with each bookmark to make it easier to find at a later point. Some social-bookmarking systems provide signaling functionality, which alerts users to the occurrence of new bookmarks (tag type) as the system is being used.
What are the benefits of Enterprise 2.0 in an Organization?
Following are the benefits of implementing Enterprise 2.0 based technologies in an organization:
- Information access: Enterprise 2.0 allows employees and other stakeholders to access timely, up-to-date and relevant information according to their needs, improving employee collaboration and knowledge sharing. Users can get this information anywhere they want - the Web, mobile devices, e-mail clients and their desktops.
- Instant notification: When new updates are made to blog or wiki, subscribers to company's RSS feeds can get instant notification via their RSS readers on their computers or cell phones. No longer do people have to keep returning to Web site to see if update has been made.
- Simplicity and cost effectiveness: Enterprise 2.0 strive to make it simpler and less expensive for individuals and businesses alike to share information, communicate with each other, and collaborate on projects. Enterprise 2.0 services are, by their nature, simple to set up and use.
How does one get started?
Before going for any Enterprise 2.0 product first identify opportunities within your organization. Find answers to the questions like where is information siloed? and Do teams have the tools they need to communicate and collaborate?, then evaluate the solutions.
After finalizing on the solution, start with a small internal project that addresses a real business problem around knowledge sharing. Blogs or wikis are a good starting point as they are self-contained tools with content management, structure and tagging capability built-in. You could start in one department by allowing employees to share ideas around a particular project using blogs.
After completing this project, when employees are comfortable making entries, responding to one another, leaving comments and organizing the content, expand the effort to include other Enterprise 2.0 tools, such as ratings and bookmarks. Eventually, you can bring other departments onboard and down the road move outside the organization to involve customers, partners and suppliers.
What should one look for in a vendor in this area?
From low-cost or free web based tools to large scale enterprise implementations, leading vendors are developing a variety of Enterprise 2.0 products. One needs to evaluate these products just as other products.
Before looking for the vendor, first define your business problem. After identifying your problem, look for the companies that can provide the best solution. As Enterprise 2.0 tools are light-weight and portable, if someone makes a mistake with a vendor, they won't be stuck in an expensive conversion process. They can simply export their blog entries, their bookmarks and tags and import them into whatever new system they have in place.

Even though Web 2.0 concepts have been in place for some years, applying them to the enterprise in an organized fashion under the Enterprise 2.0 umbrella is still very new. Many people are using this technology now, and the technology is helping the organizations to organize and share knowledge moving forward.