Customer Reviews

Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization's Toughest Challenges

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Writing this review has been is one of the hardest things I have had to do. I wanted to like this book, it's a great subject, a knowledgeable an author and great prior reviews. Unfortunately this book does not deliver making this review tough to put together. I would not suggest using this book to introduce Web 2.0 to the business. I know that this review may draw some heat from the other reviewers but here are the reasons behind my review and why I recommend reading McAfee's HBR article rather than investing the time in this book.

The book covers an important topic and a critical time in its formation. What is the impact of social computing technologies like Wiki's, blogs and other forms of social media. McAfee defines Enterprise 2.0 as the use of emergent social software platforms by organization s in pursuit of their goals. (p.71) McAfee says that Enterprise 2.0 is not primarily a technology issue. This is not born out in the text as majority of the book spends time defining the technology behind E 2.0 (chapter 3 and 4) and the capabilities provided by the technology (chapter 5).

McAfee treats E 2.0 technology at a high level. Its is as if, McAfee does not believe a business person would be interested in how the technology works, which makes the web 2.0 technologies seem trivial. If McAfee had expanded the view of technology to include the integration of business processes and information with these technologies he could have provided powerful business based descriptions.

McAfee intended to write a business book about Enterprise 2.0 but he concentrates the vast majority of pages on emergent social software platforms (ESSP). There is little discussion of the business impact of the software, how it applies to major business processes or activities and how these platforms change the way business work at a strategic, market, financial, product, organizational or operational areas. These are all questions business executives have and they are not treated sufficiently in this book. This is one reason why I would not suggest using this book as a platform for launching new social software initiatives.

Business books relies on case studies to illustrate their points and while McAfee has case studies from Google, Serena Software, the CIA, and Vista Print which should provide a solid foundation. However, the cases talk about how these people implemented Espy's in a generic fashion saying that company A implemented a blog to solve their problem. Only the description of Google's adoption of predictive markets constitutes a strong case. The limited use of practical or detailed examples is puzzling, as it does not give the reader access to McAfee's experience and insight.

McAfee further weakens his argument as the book draws on academic frameworks outside of E 2.0 and technology to answer critical issues. Normally, this is where a strong case study would illustrate how people have addressed these challenges. However, McAfee chooses strong academics including discussion of theories of Granovetter (Strength of Weak Ties), Hayek and Harford (Theory of Knowledge), Gourville (Behavioral economics and slow rates of adoption) to make his points. This unfortunately weakens the book's business impact and credibility. Not that the ideas of these thought leaders are weak, its just that they give the book a stronger academic feel than other business books. While the case studies are a good touch, the examples involve implementing relatively generic web 2.0 a wiki for one, a blog for another. While the cases do discuss the results achieved, the cases would have been stronger if the case studies provided more detail about how the cases used these technologies to achieve these results.

Finally the book seems to be stitched together from three separate research pieces. The best part of the book is actually the final chapter. It describes the book that I believe you should have read as it hints at the business, financial and other issues opened by Enterprise 2.0. The tone, content and focus of the final chapter is distinctly different from the rest of the work. If the whole book could have been like the last chapter this would have been one of the best business books of the last three years.

The first five chapters of the book are more descriptive of the phenomenon and suffer from McAfee's desire to assert his brand of the terms Enterprise 2.0 and ESSP. This assertion comes from his frequent use of the first person to define and drive the book forward, I believe this or I see that. This weakens the book and gives it a self-referential style that does not go over well with a business audience.

In chapters six and seven the book branches off into a discussion of the business value of IT and refuting Nicholas Carr's IT doesn't matter argument. This part comes out of the blue and discuses IT in general rather than the specifics of how ESSP changes the definition of IT and its role in the enterprise. Another opportunity lost in my estimation.

The introduction of Web 2.0 and social software into enterprises is a significant opportunity for every organization. This book has the potential to introduce business to these technologies in much the same way that Hammer and Champy set the stage for re-engineering, or Negroponte and the internet. However after thinking about this review for more than a week, I felt that the book does not do this and I cannot recommend it as the way of introducing ESSP's to the enterprise. I do not intent to criticize the author, his knowledge or his experience as I am sure that McAfee knows more about how to make this technology work to create value, it just did not show in this book. Sorry to offer a different view on this book, but I hope that you can see the reasons behind this review.

I was a little concerned when I started reading the book, being that I am a self-proclaimed Enterprise 2.0 "convert", that it may feel a bit like "preaching to the choir." But in reading Part 1, even though some pages are spent on introducing concepts and benefits with which I am already familiar, reading the book has been time well spent. And here's why:

- Andy uses 4 real world case studies that demonstrate how Enterprise 2.0 collaboration methods can be valuable, and if you are involved with trying to drive adoption of similar tools within your organization, these case studies are great examples to recall. Also, the examples of the US government looking to open collaboration capabilities in response to some communication failures that led to 9/11 make for great reading.
- While understanding how various 2.0 style tools work and how organizations have leveraged those tools in the past is important, having the ability to analyze existing organizational inefficiencies and identify effective collaboration methods/tools to aid those problems is where you can separate yourself. Andy provides a well thought out mapping between relationships within professional networks (Strong Ties, Weak Ties, Potential Ties and No Ties) and how Enterprise 2.0 methods/tools can be applied to build/strengthen those ties in ways that can positively impact an organization's issues. So instead of blindly throwing a wiki at a business problem, for example, you'll have the background to identify other potential tools that may be a better fit to help a specific business problem.
- While reading, I thought to myself on multiple occasions, "That's exactly what I have been trying to tell people, but now I have examples, human behavioral studies as evidence and a credible resource as another weapon in telling my story." If you have responsibility for driving adoption of 2.0 tools, trying to make a business case, or approving the business case for evolving an Enterprise 2.0 agenda, this book will be very helpful for you.

I couldn't put the book down getting through Part 1, and I am anxious to complete Part 2 having read that it is even more valuable for Enterprise 2.0 practitioners than Part 1.

Length:: 6:09 Mins

A 6-minute video review of Andrew McAfee's book "Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools For Your Organization's Toughest Challenges." Covers book's theme, the SLATES acronym, the use of different E2.0 tools for different types of ties between colleagues, McAfee's cautions, and Model1/2 behaviors and how they connect with E2.0 platforms.

TRANSCRIPT:

I'm John Caddell from Caddell Insight Group [...].

We're here today to talk about "Enterprise 2.0" by Andrew McAfee. He is with MIT, used to be at Harvard Business School. Just switched over a couple of months ago. He writes an excellent blog on IT and business, that I'd recommend you read if you haven't come across it yet. And so, he's just produced his first book. To explain the title, Enterprise 2.0 is a term he coined to refer to using web 2.0 tools like Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and similar tools in a business context.

The book is a lot like a recent book, "Groundswell," that explained to general business people how social tools affected customers and markets and how to use those to communicate and listen. Communicating from inside the business to outside. "Enterprise 2.0" performs a similar task, focusing on using those tools inside the business, more for collaboration and tapping the collective intelligence of employees. And so it takes this marginal topic and moves it to a general management-type discussion. Which I think is really important, to get it out of the IT discussion into the management discussion.

So as part of that objective he does a really good job of explaining how these tools work and also what ties them together because if you think about tools like Flickr or YouTube or a blogging platform or a messaging platform or a wiki there are a lot of differences among those but he's tied together the common threads, using an acronym called SLATES (search, links, authoring, tags, extensions and signals). Signals, for example, like RSS that allows people who follow these platforms without having to log on to them every single hour to see what's changed.

Another important part of the book is in putting the different tools into a context in terms of how useful they'd be for different organizational problems. He uses a bullseye metaphor focused on the strength of ties between colleagues to explain that. At the center of the bullseye are strongly-tied colleagues meaning people who work together in the same department, in the same location, all the way out to the edge of the bullseye. meaning colleagues who have no relationship at all. Different tools apply at different levels of the bullseye. In the center, people with strong ties would use tools like wikis, or collaborative development tools, like Google Docs.

Midway out the bullseye are colleagues with weak ties. People who know each other but don't get together often, who don't talk often, but would like to keep apprised of each other's activities for the purposes of sharing knowledge, best practices, identifying solutions to problems, and so forth. For that ring of the bullseye, Facebook-like tools are very useful.

At the outer edge of the bullseye, where colleagues have no relationship other than that they work for the same company, a prediction market is a useful tool, that gathers people's guesses about the possibility of certain things happening like a certain sales volume being reached or likelihood an innovation will succeed in the marketplace and aggregating that information to get a better answer than any individual would come up with themselves.

He doesn't go overboard in terms of enthusiasm for how great these things are and how it'll change companies overnight, and he has a pretty clear-eyed view of how difficult it is going to be to bring these tools to wide use. It just takes a long time -and he dwells on that at some extent - how long it takes for revolutionary innovations to take hold, and he doesn't think this is any different, though he is optimistic that it'll happen eventually.

And finally in the book he talks about kind of different management models or practices that work well with these tools, and by contrast he talks about typical Model 1 behaviors which are more command-and-control type behaviors, self-protecting behaviors and less-collaborative behaviors, which don't go well with these new tools. To really utilize these new tools, people have to adopt what he calls Model 2 behaviors, which are collaborative, not so much focused on self-protection but looking out for the best interests of the company. Quite a different model than what most people have seen where they work. And I think that heaps underline the challenges in getting these systems adopted and in wide use.

It's an excellent book, very well-organized and well-written. It takes an important topic and brings it into the mainstream. I really enjoyed it and I think you will too.

Having just completed this book as well as having heard Andrew McAfee speak at the recent Enterprise 2.0 conference in San Francisco, I have to say that in person and in print Andrew pulls no punches in presenting a well thought out case for Enterprise 2.0 as well as laying down the critical issues surrounding and challenging a successful implementation of social collaboration technologies in any organization.

This technology area has been somewhat of a magnet for industry fueled hype and McAfee does a great job of cutting through the BS and getting down to the core business benefits and issues revolving around these new technologies and why understanding them is so important to driving future business competitiveness. McAfee has been very successful in this book defining and detailing not just this new wave of Web 2.0 technologies in the Enterprise, but also of articulating the organizational challenges and benefits of folding Enterprise 2.0 into any company through use of the many case studies.

Harnessing the power of these new collaboration technologies is critical for companies to stay ahead by leveraging the power of network effects of their employees, to attracting and retaining the next generation of smart younger employees and to benefiting in this next wave of internet innovation by harnessing and discovering the hidden power of your workforce in the areas of innovation, collaboration, and productivity.

This book is a realistic and practical resource for those executives looking to increase the transparency of their workforces, breaking down those organizations false Chinese walls, and enabling a bottom up workforce paradigm to flourish. IMO those companies that do not take the lessons and opportunities posed in this book to heart are doomed to a painful future. Ease your anxiety about these technologies, and read this book NOW. Highly Recommended not just for C suite execs but also general managers and anyone else with interest in this area.

Which is easier: finding information on the Internet using Google or finding information in your corporate intranet? If you say that finding information on the Internet is easier then this book is for you. If you said the opposite, then you are probably lying (and I bet you are a salesman for an intranet search company too). It seems illogical that your intranet (which you pay good money to have) fails to perform nearly as well as the public Internet (which costs you nothing). Enterprise 2.0 by Andrew McAfee explains why corporate information sharing has failed to live up to our expectations - and more importantly what you can do about it. Read this book to learn what companies are doing that fundamentally changes the way they view their information, their intranets, and the teams of people who come to work every day to turn that information into business results.

Enterprise 2.0 is a book about the definition, motivation, challenges, and direction of a movement that many companies are taking to rethink the way information is created and shared within the corporate structure. The change in thinking is inspired by a change in the way we use computers in general. We once viewed our computers as a terminal connection, a publishing station, or a emailing device - the explosion of social networking behaviors in the personal lives of many are causing many businesses to consider the potential for harnessing analogous social behaviors (of documenting work activities, asking questions publicly, and reaching beyond to people you don't know well - but can trust by virtue of their reputation of connections to people you do know.) The discussion frequently references Facebook, Wikipedia, Twitter, and Delicious - but the topic of the book is squarely focused on business, not social activities.

The first half of the book is anchored by four very different case studies that each illustrates examples of where an organization had a business problem that could not be solved any other way than with an Enterprise 2.0 solution. Through the lens of these four cases (and a one other mentioned in less detail) McAfee explores the unique and compelling way Enterprise 2.0 can improve and indeed transform the workplace into a place of greater trust and access to information. McAfee gets into enough detail to be perfectly clear. But this is not a technical review the topic. This book is for a thinker who is willing to be challenged to think and be challenged.

It is primarily a management book that discusses IT-related topics from a non-IT perspective. But IT thought-leaders should read this too. The book directly addresses three audiences: The primary reader is any line manager, director, VP, or business leader who is involved in working with groups of people in large office environments. If your employees use computers at work to create and share information, you'll want to read this book. But there are two other reader-types that will get direct benefit too: Anyone involved in the Enterprise 2.0 industry (Chapter 6 in particular, also Chapter 7). And I think that any CEO, firm partner, or senior executive will benefit greatly from Chapter 8 (which I think should be Chapter 1 or 2 of McAfee's next book).

Andrew McAfee has the perspective and reach that few in our industry enjoy. The fact that he holds positions at Harvard Business School and at MIT indicates impressive credentials. This alone, not the reason I recommend this book. Rather it is the consistent manner in which McAfee provides one more level of insight than you might expect for everything he says. So even if you think you know a lot about this topic, you'll finish the book knowing much more. And yet, the book is targeting people who don't know what term "Enterprise 2.0" means.

[...]

The top critical reviewer, M. Macdonald, has made the case for me much better than I can myself. I believe the book could have used a lot more in-depth examples of Enterprise 2.0 usage. The four short case studies were introduced in more depth than the solutions they used for their problems.

I would have liked to understand more about the different uses of E 2.0 technologies and in which circumstances each should be used. The book seemed to be a bit misleading in presenting only the consideration of tie strength in determining which technology to use. While it does seem to be a good way to organize things, the lack of exploration into other possible pivots on the varied technologies is a shame.

The concept behind the book and the "Enterprise 2.0" nomenclature (coined by the author) are worthwhile and serve a purpose. As such, the book has inherent value just for "thump factor" with your exec or decision maker. "It's a real thing... see, there's even a book about it!"

Less well done is the actual execution of the book itself. I found the text to be abnormally jargon and acronym heavy, resulting in a narrative that at times lacked detail and at others was hard to follow. There are few (very few) case examples presented and for the most part they're good ones. However, a larger and more varied set would have helped illustrate the points better and also provide more opportunities for practioners in the field to present the book as including a case example that might resonate with their target exec/decision-maker.

As well, some of the examples are a little long in the tooth. I understand there are lead-times with books and this particular edition is about 9 months old at the time of my review. However, a few more recent examples would help.

Last issue is that I think this largely "preaches to the converted". What it doesn't do is scare the life out of an exec who is skeptical about these technologies. More hyperbole about "you better get on board or you'll be left behind" actually would have made for a compelling case for these sort of decision makers.

Excerpts from full review - [...]
...I wondered if McAfee's Enterprise 2.0 moniker could help clarify concepts for clients. Or, would it bandwagon on the "2.0" label (e.g. Web 2.0, Gov 2.0, Civil Society 2.0, and Beanie Babies 2.0 - yes, really).

Reflecting on Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization's Toughest Challenges, I think Enterprise 2.0 is a good conversation-starter. Also, it serves as a brief digest of other authors who examine the Web, social networks, and emergence. McAfee set out to inform business managers who need a quick intro into how to apply Web 2.0 technology and techniques in the workplace. For this demographic, the book should be useful. With the case studies and suggestions, you could then have a conversation with early adopter employees who already blur the boundaries between private life and work with social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook.

On the other hand, if you already weave Web-based apps and collaborative practices into your working day, like referencing Wikipedia, writing with others on a Google doc, or posting files with tags, then reading this book may seem like attaching training wheels to a ten speed bike.

The first 70 pages is a "101" on Web 2.0, building to his definition of Enterprise 2.0 which is "the use of emergent social software platforms by organizations in pursuit of their goals" (p. 73).

He covers four case studies ...

I was troubled that the importance of data custody and service agreements was skipped over when discussing the use of third party services as a firm's Enterprise 2.0 solution. The software company profiled had employees worldwide and found Facebook useful to manage "weak tie" connections. Instead, I think companies should aim for internal solutions that are Facebook-like, not default to using Facebook or similar sites without service guarantees. If the site goes down or gets hacked the organization could suffer.

Typically, Facebook and similar social networks do not consider specific needs. For some organizations, the (free) cost may be worth the risks in allowing your company data to be managed and mined by another firm. But, I still recommend firms build Web-native utilities into their own systems, rather than turning data over to others.

Will the "Enterprise 2.0" concept take off? Maybe. The Economist quoted McAfee in its supplement on social networks. Bloggers like Dion Hinchcliffe think so. Software vendors hope so. But, I think a special term for integrating social software platforms in business may be short lived. As these tools and behavior patterns become mainstream - much like faxes and email did - it won't be extraordinary. The new term will just be ... "work."

Andrew McAfee coined the term "Enterprise 2.0" and recently wrote a book with the same title. McAfee defines Enterprise 2.0 as the use of emergent social software platforms by organizations in pursuits of their goals.

He begins by saying that many of the problems of the early and largely unpopular computer-supported collaborative work (CSCW) tools (such as groupware and knowledge management applications) were resolved with Web 2.0 technologies that:

-are free and easy platforms for communication and interaction (texting, email, IM, etc.)

-lack of imposed structure on workflow, decision rights, interdependencies, and information.

-have mechanisms to let structure emerge (search, tagging, etc.)


These led to new Emergent Social Software Platforms (ESSPs) such as YouTube and Facebook. ESSPs share technical features such as search, links, authoring, tagging, extensions, and signals (SLATES).

Knowledge workers can take advantage of ESSPs to help them interact with different type of colleagues. For example wikis can help strongly tied colleagues work together more effectively, social networking software can help connect weakly tied colleagues, blogs can help connect colleagues with potential ties (in part by enabling discovery), and prediction markets creates interaction between colleagues who may never form a tie.

The benefits of Enterprise 2.0 come from using features of ESPPs such as group editing, authoring (people publicizing what they know), broadcast search (people publicizing what they don't know), network formation and maintenance, collective intelligence, and self organization (perhaps the broadest benefit).

The adoption of these new tools can raise concerns around inappropriate behavior and content, the appearance of embarrassing information, and non-compliance with laws, regulations, and policies. However McAfee contends that the benefits outweigh the risks and that most of these risks are actually decreased by Enterprise 2.0.

It may however be a long haul to adopt these new technologies in part due to our tendency to stay with the status quo even if a better solution exists. Therefore McAfee lays out six organizational strategies for Enterprise 2.0 success which includes:

-determine desired results, then deploy appropriate ESSPs

-prepare for the long haul

-communicate, educate, and evangelize

-move ESSPs into the flow (of every day work)

-measure progress, not ROI

-show that Enterprise 2.0 is valued


Towards the end of the book McAfee says he is most interested in Enterprise 2.0 because it can help organizations move from a Model 1 to a Model 2 style of behavior; from unilateral control of both the goals and the tasks used to accomplished goals to an environment where decision making is based on valid information and where "winning" is replaced with free and informed choices.

"Enterprise 2.0" is a good baseline book on a topic that by its nature needs to be further explored by web 2.0 powered discussions, such as those found on McAfee's website and blog.

In my private life I have long been entranced by the potential of the collaborative internet (387 reviews in, this shouldn't come as a big surprise) and have, as a result being trying my darndest to evangelise its benefits in my professional life - no small challenge, involving as it does a bunch of lawyers inhabiting the more cobwebbed crannies in the infrastructure of a bank. To that end I've set up wikis, libraries, discussion forums and sharepoint sites all, for the most part, to no avail. Old habits die hard in any circumstance, but amongst moribund lawyers they live on like zombies.

In recent times I have taken to trying to understand, or at any rate deduce, whether it is simply a challenge to the design of our particular distributed system or whether it is more a problem of the psychological configuration of the communal working environment, or some unholy, un-dead combination of the two, which renders barren my efforts. Given my current place of toil is basically one gigantic supercomputer, part human, part machine and therefore, you would think, ripe for the benefits enterprise collaboration can bring - it is frustrating to say the least to discover how immune it appears to be to those very charms.

In my studies I have consulted learned (and excellent) theoretical volumes like Lawrence Lessig's Code: Version 2.0 and Yochai Benkler's The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom, and populist ones like Chris Anderson's The Long Tail and Don Tapscott's Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, and all tell me, with varying degrees of erudition and insight, that the new world order is at hand.

Except, for all my efforts and enthusiasm, it isn't. Of the 585 articles in our wiki, I have personally authored, in their entirety, about 550 of them. I can't persuade anyone to use a discussion board but me (discussing things with myself palls after a while) and while SharePoint has been taken up with some gusto, it has invariably been done so stupidly, without thought for the collaborative opportunities it offers. Everyone sets up their own SharePoint sites, protects it like a fiefdom, and ignores all others.

I have been looking for the book that explains these challenges of the new world order and which explains how this entropy can be fought. Andrew Mcafee's Enterprise 2.0 might just be that book.

Mcafee is a believer, and a convert from a position of scepticism but, unlike (for example) Chris Anderson, he is not so starry eyed that he can't apprehend the challenges presented. Mcafee takes us through four case studies (all thrillingly on point for me!) of business executives trying, and struggling, to collaborate using existing tools. Mcafee maps these efforts (namely technological solutions) to his own sociological analysis which differentiates groups in terms of the strengths of existing ties between the individuals purporting to connect: there are strong bonds (as between direct colleagues in geographically centralised team, weaker bonds (as between fellow employees of a wider organisation) and right out at the limit, no particular bonds at all - the Wikipedia example. Different types of emergent social software platforms (ESSPs) work better for different types of community bond. Mcafee also deals with the "long haul" challenges, which acknowledges that, particularly where there is an "endowment" collaboration system to overcome (email being the most obvious), or where collaborative opportunity is "above the flow" rather than in it (i.e., collaboration is a voluntary action completed after the "compulsory" work is done), the change in behaviour will take a long time, so stick with it (encouraging stuff for this lone wiki collaborator!)

Ultimately Mcafee doesn't have the answers - nor should we expect him to - but his analysis is thoughtful, credible (as opposed to the more frequent "credulous") and optimistic - Enterprise 2.0 needs evangelists and "prime movers" who are engaged and prepared to stick with it - meaning that this is well recommended as a volume for those wanting a practical view of the enterprise benefits of social networking and Web 2.0.

Olly Buxton