Apologies to Harry Harrison and nothing to do with cannibals…
Interesting and cogent post over at Read/Write Web on the nature of Web 2.0 applications. It’s particularly relevant to me at the moment as I’m working on a paper about Web 2.0 and how business can leverage the concepts involved to improve their market.
The core of the article is that successful Web 2.0 companies are those that understand that it’s about people. To me, that’s a kind of a “meh” statement, as I already knew it. However, for many businesses, the need to be doing things in the Web 2.0 space means adopting a bottom-up style, where users drive the business. This can present a major challenge to the status quo, where top-down management is the norm.
For these businesses to remain successful, letting go of internalised knowledge, sharing their message and allowing users to be involved in the message is a major intellectual challenge. Taking management hands off the wheel and allowing responsible staff to initiate and drive conversations with the user base (without approval) and inform (and often drive) corporate decision-making takes a massive leap of faith and shift in mindset by the old-school MBA types.
Senior management willingness to drive and adopt cultural change that facilitates a participatory culture across organisations and in their dealings with staff and users/clients will be the bellwether of success as Web 2.0 concepts begin to truly take hold in business. The organisations that can cope with the change at the necessary and often frightening pace will come through. The laggards will struggle and ultimately not succeed in this space.
Over at Avenue A | Razorfish, there are a couple of really useful papers (1,2) on the subject.
I’d be interested in your opinion. Post in the comments.
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