Enterprise 2.0: An Alternative Approach to KM

Wikis and blogs will change the way knowledge workers at large organizations share the best practices and experience needed to carry out their work.  More structured knowledge management systems, including intranets, corporate portals, and expertise finders will be replaced by a new set of collaboration tools, called Enterprise 2.0.  This is the interesting and radical premise proposed by Harvard Business School Professor Andrew McAfee in a recent Sloan Management Review article, "Enterprise 2.0: The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration," (Spring 2006, pp. 21-28, Reprint #47306).

Many of the ideas in the article ring true, based on my experience building knowledge management systems over the past 10 years.  Traditional knowledge management systems are difficult to built and maintain.  In addition, the level of use can be quite low.

McAfee describes five Enterprise 2.0 technologies (SLATES) that could change how we build help knowledge workers collaborate and organizations share information:

1. Search--the classic Google-style keyword variety.
2. Links--using the number of pages linked to a page to identify the most relevant search results.
3. Authoring tools--blogs and wikis.
4. Tags--the ability to self-tag sites, creating a folksonomy (a great new term).
5. Extensions--the recommendations found in sites like Amazon (if you like this book, look at these others).
6. Signals--RSS feeds and other technologies that allow you to be informed when new content is posted.

The keys to the success of these technologies in a large organization are the authoring tools.  If we can get knowledge workers to contribute to wikis, we can build an organizational knowledge base.  Consider a chip manufacturer with hundreds of electrical engineers around the world who work with clients to design new products (cell phones, laptops and servers).  If these engineers write wikis on key topics, they can share the knowledge they need to better satisfy client needs.  These engineers can also create and manage their own blogs to share their expertise.  Those who need the knowledge can find it through searching, linking, tagging, extensions and signals.

Of course, organizational culture and reward systems must be changed and an effective deployment plan must be designed to create widespread use, both by contributors and searchers.  McAfee makes some solid recommendations in this area.

I am cautiously optimistic about the corporate use of wikis and blogs.  McAfee makes a strong argument.  I plan to track down the cases he has written and any information I can find on other companies that use Enterprise 2.0 technologies.  I also plan on applying the expertise I have gained to date, to help organizations apply these technologies to design and build new and better knowledge management systems.

To learn more, you might want to visit Professor McAfee's blog.