[e2.0] Enterprise Live Debate: Andrew McAfee and Tom Davenport at Enterprise 2.0 – It’s All about the People! (Part II)

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, e2.0, Collaboration Technologies, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Social Media, Web 2.0, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Personal Knowledge Management, PKM, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, Social Networks, Communities, Learning, Tom Davenport, Andrew McAfee, Innovation, Social Capital, KM 2.0

WOW! There we go again! Continuing further with the second weblog post from a series of seven, this time around regarding Tom’s commentary on the social computing value for corporations, that I have just mentioned earlier on… This is exactly one of the many reasons why traditional Knowledge Management failed over the course of the years. The fact that most businesses tried to make money by applying different KM strategies is what actually got KM into trouble in the first place and why, still today, it hasn’t recovered.

Pretty similarly, if we would want Enterprise 2.0 to survive in the current business environment, we should stop thinking in those same terms. Enterprise 2.0 will never be about the business, or about making a bunch of money, or about lots and lots of value add. All the other way around: Enterprise 2.0 is all about helping and empowering knowledge workers share their knowledge, collaborate with their peers and keep innovating as a result of those interactions!

In short, Enterprise 2.0 is all about empowering those knowledge workers to connect with one another, to build up trustworthy and lasting relationships, to facilitate multiple conversations between peers in order to facilitate their sharing of knowledge with others, and to help improve their already deteriorated social capital skills so that they can continue working being a lot smarter, without not necessarily making it harder for themselves. Where is the money in that? Whoever is thinking that Enterprise 2.0 is going to help generate lots of revenue is just wasting their time, pretty much like most businesses did when they tried to incorporate the traditional KM strategies into the corporate world. It didn’t work then, it is not going to work now either.

Remember, all of this so-called revolution is about the people, not about the tools, nor about the processes, and definitely not about the money! Never about the money. If we would have stopped KM from falling into that same trap of helping businesses make money as a result of it, I bet we would be talking about a completely different perception for KM as we have today, where it currently is everything, but positive. On the contrary. Sadly (And unfortunately!)

(To be continued…)