stoweboyd and the /messengers

There has been a large and varied response to my recent post on social business (see Social Business, Not Enterprise 2.0, and the longer piece at the Enterprise 2.0 blog, Social Business: Why The Enterprise 2.0 Moniker Is Wrong).

Some have said that the 2.0 version numbering approach is positive, because it suggests an obvious alignment with Web 2.0, Government 2.0, and a long list of other 2.0s planned or in use.

My response to that is two fold (no pun intended). First, I am strongly in favor of the Web 2.0 term, because it has been well-defined, has become part of the tech lexicon and thinking, and is useful as a model and to differentiate what is going on now from what preceded it. But other derivatives, like Office 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0, have not established their independent utility (although Gov 2.0 might, some day soon). In part this is because there just isn't enough there. And, specifically in the case of Enterprise 2.0, the principles that underlie what is happening in today's Web revolution run counter to today's reality within businesses.

It may be a small thing, but the way that metaphors work matters in cases like these. We are, implicitly or explicitly, trying to lead people toward a conception of an improved model of business. We have to rally support for these ideas, and having the right sorts of symbols and themes can help dramatically. Or, said in the negative, using the wrong concepts may impede progress.

I think the version release model does not help, in this case.

Version release numbers represent a specific moment in time: a release date. So, 'Mac OS X' or 'Windows 7' each represent an era, a period of time, largely defined by what was released at the initial date.

Web 2.0 fits that bill reasonably well. It suggests that there was a preceding, Web 1.0 era, and that we learned and thought and fiddled, and then we consolidated all that into a new release: Web 2.0! And, it fits pretty well.

But Enterprise 2.0 is nothing like that, or if it is, it is a conjecture about some future period of time. At the best, it represents the gradual adoption of Web 2.0 technologies into the enterprise, which is slowly happening. But it does not really say anything about what sorts of changes in management and operations need to happen to leverage the possibilities arising from these new tools and techniques. So I have come to think that, in this context at least, 2.0ing is a trap. It suggests that we have crossed some defining boundary into a new way of doing things. But we haven't. Companies are only now starting to take the first tentative steps toward a new basis for business.

If we wanted to stick with release terminology, perhaps 'alpha' might be the right term, but even that is too concrete for where we are. So we need to avoid all release terminology.

In the Open Enterprise research project that I kicked off late last fall, and conducted during the winter and spring of 2009, I focused on the openness of the Web as a defining characteristic of the change that I believed was starting to happen in the world of business. Our investigations with many companies and practitioners led to some support for this, but I discovered that openness was only one of a group of characteristics, and, I now believe, not the most critical one.

What jumped out of the study -- in retrospect -- is an understanding that the social revolution on the web will lead to a social revolution in business, and openness is one part of that emerging whole.

I saw today that James Governor has announced a new initiative based on the ideal of 'Responsible Enterprise 2.0'. I think this is a case much like my choice of the 'open enterprise' last year. Responsibility, like openness, is perhaps too narrow a term for what James and his collaborators intend. 'Responsible Enterprise 2.0' conjures up visions of green eyeshades, which isn't going to enthrall any community much, and falls into the release numbering trap, again.

Whatever term fights its way to the forefront of our collective consciousness, it will have to be perceived as encompassing the sexy and dynamic side of the business, like innovation, creativity, product design, and marketing. Anything that smacks of accounting will not excite people to take bold action or undertake sweeping change.

I am pushing for 'social business' because it leverages the heat of the social web, and the real-time elements that are growing there, today.

And 'social business' builds on the concept of that we are all people connected on the earth. This brings in the related themes of corporate justice, sustainability, eco-responsibility, and a host of other forward-looking themes.

But, as it must, our attention must be drawn to the benefits of reworking the engine of business -- where products are conceived and built, deals are done, and customers are heard and satisfied -- not just the brakes.

We need to get to the bottom of the business, down to social scale, where people touch other people, where good things happen, and rethink work from there, upwards. This is what social business design is about, and that's why the name fits so well.