Web 2.0 Knowledge Technologies and the Enterprise: Smarter, Lighter and Cheaper

Web 2.0 technologies and tools have become as important to modern electronic communications and information sharing as the original web browsers and servers of the mid‐late 1990s that spread the internet revolution around the globe. But for any information professional, manager or strategist considering an organisational project to implement the low‐cost, high‐impact and easily mastered Web 2.0 software tools to address information fragmentation and reduce proprietary IT systems costs, there are a series of challenges to surmount. For whilst these tools have been rapidly adopted by many millions of individual internet users across multiple platforms and networked devices, when implemented within organisations they may unhappily prove far less successful in meeting users' expectations and delivering hoped‐for business transformations. The question is so often asked: how can we successfully harness the manifest power of blogs, wikis, feeds and social media for our own enterprise? However, finding the answers to create a compelling case typically proves far more elusive than anyone expects.

Paul Jackson's book tackles head‐on this remarkable yet persistent mismatch between the tangible promise of Web 2.0 technology to significantly address information management problems common to many organisations, and the problematic realities that frequently hinder or even negate its successful implementation. Backed by extensive experience as a knowledge management practitioner and more recently as an academic, his approach is to help the reader better understand the new world of Web 2.0 by considered reference to key concepts in both social theory and organisational behaviour. By focussing reflexively on Web 2.0 as primarily “about technology” in the same way that standard IT projects are governed, organisations frequently fail to understand how the very different and often “edgeless” attributes of these tools accordingly require suitably appropriate ways to conceptualise their applications within the enterprise. We should instead realise that adopting blogs, wikis and social media to successful effect first means confronting a deeply established, inflexible and essentially closed organisational view of information in which too little attention is paid to the diversity of individuals' social behaviour. Web 2.0 is truly a new paradigm because it is so clearly fluid, open and participative. We talk of “social software” and “social media” because this new technology wave represents non‐predetermined communications between individuals and groups, based on informal, interactive conversations. But when transposed to organisations, those same kinds of communications may themselves threaten existing spheres of authority and control, resulting in barriers to adoption becoming erected.

This book unapologetically makes some considerable intellectual stamina demands on its reader. Jackson believes the common reason why so many IT projects fail to deliver expected benefits is down to a crucial deficiency in “philosophical” understanding. Business systems can only succeed in their objectives if supported by a sound understanding of social systems of knowledge creation that are based on interpersonal activity. Typically however, the project design and implementation focus is placed squarely on functional effect without any significant appreciation of social effect and its key contribution. The book begins in familiar territory by defining what comprises Web 2.0 and mapping out its related tools, illustrated with numerous well‐chosen and unhackneyed examples. Jackson then places the rise of Web 2.0 in the wider business contexts of globalisation, uncertainty and social ways in which knowledge is created, shared and applied: this is technology of its time, and for its time. He takes a critical look at the commonly assumed business case drivers for Web 2.0 implementation: this is often the root cause of failure for this transformative technology to meet expectations. These are typically simplistic extrapolations from the well‐known context of Web 2.0 and at best represent only approximate incentives for implementing its tools. Jackson now proceeds in three successive chapters to take the reader ever deeper into key concepts (“spaces”, “flows”, “functions”) that draw heavily on social theory. At this point the argument leads us deep into the heart of the sociology of knowledge, examining the applications of transactive memory systems (TMS) to Web 2.0 tools with a plethora of schematic diagrams, flow charts and tables.

Whilst perhaps being intellectually challenging for knowledge management practitioners, as opposed to students or theorists, this densest section of Jackson's book is nevertheless lightened with numerous practical illustrative examples taken from the workplace and with frequent reference to observed vagaries of human behavioural patterns. He is especially convincing in discussing the cultural “postulates” (deeply held, often ingrained views and beliefs) and the role played by power structures in many organisations which will drive behaviour and attitudes to knowledge that can significantly hinder or even negate the successful implementation of Web 2.0. Jackson's use of “spaces” (including encyclopaedic, collaborative, advisory, learning, partner, social, departure, arrival, programme, innovation, personal workflow, customer) as a key concept to help information managers conceptualise the different kinds of purposes that Web 2.0 tools can support, is particularly relevant since it helps identify more clearly the related functional requirements and potential applicability of those tools. Moreover, his model of spaces lets us clearly define purposes and outcomes whilst accurately reflecting the realities and complexities of social behaviour. He convincingly demonstrates how spaces work to narrow down the otherwise open‐ended series of possibilities presented by Web 2.0 to describe first a context, then a framework for technical functions and ultimately a plan for their implementation. Using the spaces approach forces us to ask the key information‐centric questions first – and only then to look at selecting appropriate technologies.

The final section, encouragingly titled “Putting it together” along with a short conclusion and case study appendix, are particularly valuable to the information professional or knowledge manager tasked with preparing a Web 2.0 technology implementation. Jackson provides a series of gradually expanding tables that helpfully codify the different spaces, key attributes, individual behaviours and applicable business process drivers. These provide the highest‐level summary possible of the more abstract concepts that form the core chapters of this book, and they reinforce Jackson's passionately‐argued belief that any serious attempt to implement Web 2.0 in an organisation without first understanding key concepts of social theory is bound to run a high risk of failure to deliver expected benefits. The application of social theorists' work is not just intellectual indulgence on the author's part, but instead a proof of the old adage that there's nothing so practical as a good theory. Short glossaries of Web 2.0 and social theory terms are rounded off with an extensive ten‐page bibliography encompassing both theoretical and managerial practitioner resources; there is also a functional index.

This is one of those rare professional books that successfully combines knowledge distilled from years of varied professional experience with an academic perspective to produce a work that is elegantly written, closely but always clearly argued, and stimulating in its approach. It can be highly recommended to students and practitioners alike.