The introduction of consumer driven Web 2.0 technologies into businesses is set to usher in a phase of productivity growth that could surpass that of the late 1990’s boom, says John Chambers, chairman and chief executive of Cisco Systems.
“We are at the very beginning of the next phase of creativity, that will last, I think … probably 15 years,” said Mr Chambers. “But it will have more impact because … the power of [connecting] many to many allows you to do things at a dramatically different speed.” ((Allison, Kevin, Waters, Richard and Guerrera, Francesco. July 16, 2007. “Cisco says Web 2.0 will boost productivity.” Financial Times, Companies and Markets, Page 15.))
This makes great sense. We’ve already seen blogs and wikis deployed in technology R&D environments where collaboration is critical. What is exciting to watch is to see how the development of “many to many” technologies will manifest outside of R&D environments to spur business innovation. I agree with Mr Chambers and I don’t think we’ve seen the tip of the iceberg yet regarding where this will lead us.
I like the description of Web 2.0 as “consumer driven.” In our world of blogs and wikis and tags, this is certainly true. If you reflect on how these technologies are deployed internally within an organization, this is also surprisingly true. Technologies may be installed centrally within an organization’s data center, but the utilization of that technology is almost entirely managed by the user population.
Certainly you might have a manager or owner of the technology somewhere that provides structure and rules around what is acceptable and appropriate, or to ensure that usage of the technology provides sufficient forward movement. However, the overall management of the technologies actually come from the user population. Content and ideas generated are a result of the network of people without facilitation.
As with prior discussions about Web 2.0 and HR, I think we’ll just have to sit back and watch where this takes us. For those lucky few who find new applications for this technology, these will be exciting times indeed.
