The BrainYard - Where collaborative minds congregate.

Stowe Boyd, Contributor

March 20, 2009

1 Min Read

I had the opportunity recently to catch up with Andrew, the person who coined the term "Enterprise 2.0" a few years back. Andrew is a professor at the Harvard Business School, and he has just completed a book on the topic. The takeaways from the talk with Andrew:

  1. The spottiness of adoption is interesting. In some sectors -- software development -- wikis have become a commonplace platform. But elsewhere, it's very uneven.

  2. Andrew believes that leadership is very important, and often absent where Web 2.0 technologies aren't being adopted.

  3. Andrew believes that Twitter is being more widely adopted where the default is openness.

  4. Great anecdote about Tivo, as an example as a better mousetrap that remained a niche tool. Many Web 2.0 tools fall into the 9X Effect, where the proponents overestimate the benefits by a factor of three, and those that haven't adopted them underestimate by a factor of three.

  5. He mentions Euan Semple as an exemplar (see his interview, IT Is Not The Source Of Innovation.)

  6. Andrew asked me to look into how companies are exploring the "borders" of tools, how companies avoid (or don't) building walled gardens.

I will certainly be speaking with Andrew many times in the coming months.

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