social computing

Tom Davenport recently wrote a think piece to explain why social software won’t transform the enterprise. Andrew McAfee, who coined the phrase “Enterprise 2.0″ to describe this kind of software, replied. In comments on their two posts, a lively debate ensued.

Tom describes Enterprise 2.0 as “the widespread adoption of social media and participative technologies in order to transform culture and decision-making in large organizations.” He then disputes the claim that it will “empower employees, decentralize decisions, free up knowledge, and generally make for better places to work,” although he does express himself as favoring this development.

I don’t understand the debate, because Tom’s first point is a rhetorical straw man, and his second seems both inaccurate and ahistorical:

1. Social technologies don’t exist in order to transform organizations. That’s a straw man. They exist in order to give people powerful new tools to get their work done!

2. Pretty much any technology that gives people in business more power to communicate, model, express, collaborate, or undertake any other core business activity will empower employees, decentralize decisions, and free up knowledge. It would be hard to imagine any other result!

Surely, the prime example is the personal computer itself — and there were plenty of people around to express the same kind of skepticism Tom expresses about social software.

Now, will enterprises be transformed because enterprise work has been transformed? Well, were they transformed by the PC, by email, by the Web itself? They certainly were changed, and new technologies will continue to change them.

Yet, obviously, it’s not a technology but the widespread use of a technology that leads to change. The tools of Enterprise 2.0 are simple and powerful, the results will be emergent; we can’t know them in advance, but we can be sure they will be there!