Having recently attended the CIMA event on the value of Enterprise 2.0, I’ve come to a conclusion that I must’ve been living in my little, tech, Web 2.0 bubble for way too long, because nothing prepared me for the audience’s ignorance. I arrived ready to cover the ROI and use cases, I left humbled by a lack of understanding or distinction between social media and collaborative business tools.
I should be rejoicing – if there’s still so little understanding of what benefits E2.0 can bring into the enterprise then I’m certainly in the right business. Instead I am massively pissed off. Five years at uni doing sociology. Countless hours of qualitative and quantitative research, game theory, in-depth interviews etc. And yet, I eat up every new analyst and CIO report that tells me that the Enterprise 2.0 is here. Have I completely forgotten how data can be manipulated? Have I turned a blind eye to ‘a man on the street’?
And here I find myself torn. Between whom I’ve become – a marketer and whom I aspired to be – a sociologist. I’m suffering from a sudden attack of cognitive dissonance. The gap must be bridged. There’s work to be done. Enterprise 2.0 may not prove to be the Holy Grail for all, but if you knew someone had cancer, you’d tell them about the latest drug treatment, wouldn’t you? Let’s take to the streets… Ok, maybe I’m going a bit too far with this.
Luckily, in my job, I can evangelize Enterprise 2.0 till the cows come home. And eventually, they will come, even if it means that I have to drag their calves back to the ranch.
