Now that Web 2.0 or "social media" features such as blogs, wikis, podcasts and other collaborative tools have become almost mainstream, are more businesses starting to adopt them as a way of improving efficiency and empowering staff?
The answer seems to be mixed, at least judging from a couple of recent surveys.
Andrew McAfee, the Harvard Business School professor who coined the term "Enterprise 2.0" to describe these kinds of technologies when used in a corporate setting, has written HBS case studies about several companies that have used social media with some success, including Wall Street brokerage firm Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein.
The brokerage found that blogs allowed employees to connect with each other, to share information and to collaborate more easily. Similar results have been reported by others, including IBM, where several thousand employees have blogs, and even U.S. intelligence services, where international security experts are using social tools to share data about rapidly developing threats.
While many companies are interested in the potential of social media, however, and some are using blogs, wikis, podcasts and other Web 2.0 tools, most corporations seem to be taking a wait-and-see attitude when it comes to social networking and social media.
Those that are interested in such tools, meanwhile, appear to be looking for a major software and services company to provide all the necessary tools in a nice, neat package, rather than having to go out and find the software themselves from different vendors.
According to a recent survey of 119 chief information officers by Forrester Research, companies currently using Web 2.0 tools are "driven by gains in worker efficiency," but also by "a fear of competitive pressures."
Companies that haven't adopted Web 2.0 technologies say there is a "perceived lack of business value and priority." But Forrester said almost all of the CIOs surveyed "recognized Web 2.0 as more than a passing fad."
Web 2.0 tools "are really making their way into the enterprise," Forrester analyst Oliver Young told Computerworld magazine. "For those people who were adopting the technology, it was really because it was helping them with some business process."
Consulting firm McKinsey & Co. also did a recent survey of corporate executives about Web 2.0, and found more awareness of and interest in social media tools than Forrester (McKinsey surveyed 2,870 senior-level executives). Of those familiar with tools such as blogs, wikis, RSS and social networking, more than 75 per cent said their companies were already investing in one or more of them.
The McKinsey report also found that more than 50 per cent of the executives surveyed were pleased with the results of their investments in Web technologies over the past five years, and nearly 75 per cent said their companies plan to maintain or increase their investments in Web 2.0 technologies in the coming years.
Most CIOs survey in the Forrester study -- about 70 per cent -- said they would be more interested in Web 2.0 technology if they could buy it from a major vendor such as Microsoft or IBM, and 74 per cent said they would be more interested if they could acquire a bunch of different social media tools as a single software suite.
That's probably good news for IBM, which recently launched a suite of Web 2.0 tools called Lotus Connections, including blog software, social bookmarking and other collaborative features. Several of the features in the suite -- including the bookmarking tool, code-named Dogear -- were developed internally for use at IBM.
Prof. McAfee says (on his blog, of course) that he expects more businesses to adopt some or all of the social media tools mentioned in the Forrester and McKinsey surveys, because they can help companies become more efficient, which in turn allows them to adapt to a changing business environment or a competitive threat.
The professor says that those using Web 2.0 technologies are finding them particularly effective for certain things, including: collaborating with others on a document; building an in-house "encyclopedia" of information about a topic; setting up a "war room" for a rapidly developing situation; and connecting those with specific kinds of knowledge to those who need it quickly and efficiently.
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