Enterprise 2.0

Enterprise 2.0 consists of utilizing the advancements of the web 2.0 revolution such as social media integration in to businesses to make interaction with internal and external users more efficient. (1)

It is very easy to confuse web 2.0 social media and enterprise 2.0 social media. There are some very significant differences. Here is a list of some of their main differences:
Enterprise 2.0
Web 2.0 /Social Media
Internal Facing
External Facing
Firewall
Open to the world
Business
Social
knowledge capture
sharing random things
productivity & efficiency
time-suck
reduction of email
email producer
collaboration
67 comments on fark
wiki, blog, social bookmarks, chat
social networks and "cool interactive" websites
(2)


With Enterprise 2.0 and E-Business on the rise there are a number of companies that are implementing this new Enterprise 2.0 strategy to further unify their respective organization and team members worldwide. It simply allows the employees of large companies to communicate with each other more efficiently - especially when they are thousands of miles apart. This new strategy is becoming more and more prevalent and by 2012 these social networking tools will become a $4.6 billion industry according to a report by Forrester Research. (3)


"Enterprise 2.0 social networks are also emerging, such as the IBM Bluehouse network (see Figure 7). These services are aimed at medium to large businesses that want to create an internal social network featuring contact information, blogs and wikis, and reporting structure information for all the employees in a company. The enterprise social network is much like a detailed and personalized corporate directory with features like tagging, social bookmarking, and commenting—all integral components of the network." (4) An example of this that I have experienced first hand is the implementation of our very own social network called EmpowerU by leading digital imaging company Fuji Film. EmpowerU is a learning platform that is used to deliver video training content in a fun and interactive way to all the employees nationwide. Each team member has the ability to log on and create a profile similar to Facebook and be connected to everyone on the team in the entire country. It is amazing and provides a great deal of benefit as it gives us a platform to share knowledge and experience with everyone on the team. Along with training material, we also have access to pre release TV advertising campaigns and a plethora of other stuff that is not available to the public yet.

I believe that Enterprise 2.0 is only starting to take off now and will become more widespread in the near future. It truly makes communication and transfer of data and information throughout the company a breeze and will serve to benefit all companies from small and midsize to large ones as well, albeit the cost of implementation may be greater.


1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_2.0
2. http://socialcomputingjournal.com/viewcolumn.cfm?colid=802
3. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/forrester-social-networking-will-be-biggest-enterprise-20-priority-by-2013-smaller-businesses-reticent/8555
4. http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/web/library/wa-enterprise20/index.html