How Consumers Are Leading the Way to Enterprise 2.0

In earlier eras, computing innovation was originally driven by investments in the military
and enterprise sectors, and later moved into the consumer space. However, we are
now seeing consumers leading the way by virtue of their high-performance computers,
broadband connections, comfort with the medium, and ready access to powerful
online applications. This will reach IT from at least two distinct directions:
Consumers’ experience with Web 2.0-class software is setting the bar of what
software can and should be. Consumers are bringing that knowledge, as well as
those expectations, into their roles as corporate employees.
Enterprise software vendors are learning how to effectively incorporate Web 2.0
principles into their product and service offerings.
Web 2.0’s inevitable arrival within the enterprise is likely to follow the pattern set by
earlier disruptions, such as personal computers or instant messaging, and infiltrate
organizations in a decentralized, bottom-up fashion, only to become pervasive and
essential.
Impact: Web 2.0 is leading to Enterprise 2.0—CIOs and IT executives will only succeed
if they are ahead of the curve through an understanding of the workplace benefits and
challenges of Web 2.0. The differences in needs and culture “behind the firewall” mean
adapting external models to the appropriate internal ones. Enterprises can learn from
consumer Web 2.0 lessons, such as massive scaling, capturing network effects, and creating
rich user experiences.
Although each of these trends has impact and meaning unto itself, the truly significant
consequence comes from the fact that they are all occurring simultaneously. The
most successful Web 2.0 products and companies are capitalizing on:
New business models facilitated by changes in infrastructure costs, the reach
of the Long Tail, viral network-driven marketing, and new advertising-based
revenue opportunities.
New social models in which user-generated content can be as valuable as
traditional media, where social networks form and grow with tremendous
speed, where truly global audiences can be reached more easily, and rich
media from photos to videos is a part of everyday life online.
New technology models in which software becomes a service; the Internet
becomes the development platform, where online services and data are mixed
and matched; syndication of content becomes glue across the network; and
high-speed, ubiquitous access is the norm.
These models are bound together in an era where network effects rapidly drive viral
growth, where data rather than function is the core value of applications, and customers
now think of applications as services they use, not software they install.