Why Is Enterprise 2.0 Not Yet More Widely Adopted?

On March 25th, Ethan Yarbrough asked the following question on LinkedIn: Why is Enterprise 2.0 not yet more widely adopted? A simple yet compelling question.

In the intervening five days, 22 people have commented on this question, resulting in one of the best discussions I've seen on LinkedIn, and a great example of the power of social media. Here is a summary of what I believe are some of the key themes across the 22 comments thus far:

- Enterprise 2.0 adoption will be slow until it comes to be understood as Work 2.0. This means a dramatic change in how we think about work; not just how we do work.

- Work 2.0 solutions can't just be "stood up"; they must be designed to enable specific business goals.

- Design is not the same as Adoption, though both are important.

- Work 2.0 solutions must integrate with and enhance real business workflow processes. E 2.0 solutions as stand-alone social media islands will never deliver the ROI to encourage rapid uptake.

- The difficulty in defining a hard business case for Work 2.0 solutions is a major challenge in an ROI fixated business culture. This challenge will go away when we have the tools to measure the impact of Work 2.0 solutions on interaction, communication, and contribution.

- Work 2.0 solutions address deep cultural and inter-personal issues related to tradition, hierarchy, respect, etc. that very few previous technology solutions have touched on so directly.

- Off-the-shelf solutions such as MS SharePoint have tainted business understanding of the potential of Work 2.0 solutions.

To the above points, I would add this thought:

- Work 2.0 is transformational. Success requires visionary and committed leadership at the very top who understand the transformational potential of Work 2.0 and are prepared to embrace and champion it despite the many obstacles. A great example is John Chambers at Cisco. Adoption of Work 2.0 will continue apace with the development of Leadership 2.0 in corporate America and globally.