Using Web 2.0 in the Workplace

Shel Holtz has put together a 30-minute video about moving Web 2.0 tools into the enterprise. I’ve embedded his video below. The video is pretty long but it’s worth a watch to get the basics on using tools including blogs, podcasting and social networking within large companies. I tried for years to get a corporation to embrace these tools, it’s very hard to get a large company to embrace change. Especially when the corporate culture is locked into large, enterprise-level, long-term contract packages.

Shel misses a few key points:

• One of the biggest reasons companies aren’t using Web 2.0 tools externally is because legal teams hold installation and execution back due to fear of litigation or revealing private company secrets to the public
• Large companies aren’t embracing these tools yet because the platforms they have selected aren’t setup to handle Web 2.0 tools yet – it’s easy to assume (as Shel does) that every corporation is ready-to-go with things like tagging, bookmarking, wikis and rss feeds for other employee blogs
• IT employee knowledge is not always current with what’s available externally
• Many times partner agencies appear to have knowledge in these new areas but oversell and underdeliver
• Shel also misses the most important reason that companies are moving to these new social tools inside the corporate walls – money. The more productive employees are, the cheaper they are. Many of these tools can help corporations move forward without the expensive, bulky portal-style software packages they have been using for a decade.

Will large corporations move to Web 2.0 and social networking tools inside the enterprise? Absolutely because they will eventually be seen as a way to increase performance and reduce expenses.