Brian Solis writes about some of the resistance to blogging that he encounters from companies, and much of this applies to to wikis and enterprise 2.0 tools in general. For example, one questions he was asked is, "How would you recommend clients use blogging as part of their PR strategy? The easy answer is I would love them to start..." The same is true with wikis in the enterprise (for a wide range of things, not just PR — keep in mind Brian's blog is primarily about PR and Marketing). The key is starting — as I wrote earlier: You can't win if you don't play.
Another argument has to do with measuring return on investment: "The challenge initially is to justify and measure the investment against a legitimate and proven ROI model. It just doesn't stack up or compare to anything most companies do today, so it's an incredibly difficult first step." Same with wikis. One bright light is this comment by Stan Gibson about wiki use at Motorola: "As at many enterprises that have seen wiki proliferation, Redshaw and Singh performed no cost/benefit analysis ahead of time and have not tracked return on investment. That's because the investment in wiki technology is so low as to be negligible and the payback is intuitively understood, yet difficult to quantify."
Brian ends the post with this quote: "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and it looks like hard work" — Thomas Edison. This is true, but it goes even further than looking like hard work to start. Blogs, wikis, and social media are difficult to measure using the traditional means, and change the existing power structure in organizations. This scares some people because it means they might lose a certain level of power they've enjoyed, but trying to delay adoption of the new tools will only work temporarily, since others who see their value and will directly benefit from them are already bringing them in under the radar.
1 Comment(s)
I think it comes down to that aphorism "Great Oaks from Little Acorns Grow". The key here is therefore one of patience rather than simply looking out for early adopters or tracing Wiki's through the course of an adoption cycle. The Edison quote is interesting because Edison does represent the quintessential high-tech entrepreneur. In that regard this Rutger's piece on Edison is informative this Rutger's piece on Edison. This piece however differs from how Peter Drucker contrasted the new technology of entrepreneurial management with high-tech enterprise. Drucker wrote in "Innovation and Entrepreneurship":
" But for the "high-tech" entrepreneur, the archetype still seems to be Thomas Edison. Edison, the nineteenth century's most successful inventor, converted invention into the discipline we now call research. His real ambition, however, was to be a business builder and to become a tycoon. Yet he so totally mismanaged the businesses he started that he had to be removed from every one of them to save it. Much, if not most high tech is still being managed, or more accurately mismanaged, Edison's way. This explains, first, why the high-tech industries follow the traditional pattern of great excitement, rapid expansion, and then sudden shakeout and collapse...but most high tech companies...are still inventors rather htan innovators, still speculators rather than entrepreneurs"
Google fits Drucker's model of entrepreneurial management and the mindset required here isn't as much the brand power of Thomas Edison, but in part the patience Edison demonstrated in the discovery and research process, but he also promoted the "DC" current, when Nikola Tesla was promoting the "AC" current - (Westinghouse in particular should be thankful to Tesla). Nikola Tesla himself represents all those who contribute to technology who never get the thanks or respect they truly deserve. There is in my mind a Tesla in every open source enthusiast, but the Tesla method of collaboration is vastly different to the Edison way.
The "Great Oaks" of Tesla were the inventions that were critical to the 20th Century, the "Great Oaks" of Edison however where GE and Westinghouse, the very corporate culture that the collaborative environment seeks to change. We do know that Tesla died in an impoverished state and that Edison was highly glorified and yet in comparison it is Tesla who should command the greater respect. These acorns therefore are about mindset and the "Great Oaks" continue to be that which is life changing for the 21st Century rather than the monuments of the 20th Century.
The world will change for the better under our feet because collaborative technology gives back the arms, feet and bodies, the very down to earth construct that Marshall McLuhan once warned would disappear when our central nervous system is extended. Indeed McLuhan served to provide us this warning so we can shift our mindsets to make technology a progressive asset. There are those that died in the pauper's grave who did change the world, apart from Tesla, Thomas Paine comes to mind - but Paine and Tesla still represent the revolutionary acorn - not a sixties mindset but a 21st Century one, a mindset that transforms forty years into the future and not one which is based on ideologies created forty years in the past.
As I think these things through the aphorism is about the Acorn - for it is the Acorn that we are. If this acorn leads to an intelligent means of living, we have served collaboration well, if it leads to the worship of Great Oaks, then not only have we done technological progress a great disservice, but we failed to do the one thing that patience demands from us - the ability to change the way we individually think and adapt to create a new promising future.
M.
[PS...This piece is written as an external contribution of my Explorative Thinking Process, it is written so I can personally think these matters through and not for the purposes of generating or the promulgation of groupthink]
By Syven at November 2, 2007 2:03 AM