Bridges To Knowledge: A Blog by Barry Camson

Vulnerability and Web 2.0

What does vulnerability have to do with Web 2.0? How could there be two things that are so far apart? Web 2.0 is technological, concrete, objective. Vulnerability is soft, subjective and ambiguous.

Vulnerability is an important condition for personal learning and development and the deepening of relationships. Personal learning requires one's admission to oneself and to others that one needs to develop further and that certain resources available outside oneself would be helpful to further this development. Vulnerability is essential to the deepening of relationships. It is an indication that one is willing to make one's personal boundaries open to the other as part of the process of engagement. Vulnerability is important in supporing the intangible exchanges that are crucial for producing value in a business context.

Building Trust In A Network Environment

How critical is building trust in a network in achieving the purpose of the network. Here, I am referring to a network that interacts across web 2.0 platforms, through lower technology vehicles and in person. Can building trust be ignored? Is web 2.0 technology sufficient to obviate the need for trust?  If trust is important, then how do we build trust in a network.

Some People Believe.......A Story of Enterprise 2.0 Adoption and Use

Some people believe that all that is necessary for successful Enterprise 2.0 adoption and use is for everything to be built into the technology, itself. Their view is that all of the issues of deployment and adoption can be addressed by how the technology is designed. They hold that an organization can be moved to be a more "Need To Share"-type organization by virtue of what is embedded in the technology.

Other people believe that technology is only the nuts and bolts and is limited in what it can accomplish by itself. These people hold that what most influences deployment, adoption and successful use are organizational changes to the processes, behaviors, configurations and the resulting culture.

Six Important Conversations To Have To Bridge The Enterprise 2.0 Cultural Gap

There appears to be a growing recognition that successfully dealing with cultural issues is a critical success factor in the deployment and adoption of Enterprise 2.0 tools and the changes in ways of working related to these tools. Many of the presenters at the recent Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston spoke of the importance of culture in Enterprise 2.0 deployment in organizations. A common comment was, "it's not about the tools, it's about the culture."

The change management challenge is to move the organization deploying Enterprise 2.0 tools from what may be a traditional, hierarchical, command and control culture to one that is less hierarchical, and more collaborative, agile, open and transparent - characteristics which are more congruent with Enterprise 2.0 tools.

Here are six conversations that I recommend occur in your organization that will help your organization bridge the cultural gap between the status quo and the organization as an effective user of Enterprise 2.0 tools. This builds on a previous post where I stated that "to optimize the technology and achieve improvements in organizational effectiveness...a focus on the overall organization is important."

Six Helpful Topics From The Enterprise 2.0 Conference

I attended the recent Enterprise 2.0 Conference held in Boston. There were a variety of excellent presentations and a lot to learn from the various vendor exhibits. As usual, I took extensive notes. A number of comments that I heard impacted me. I have rolled these comments up into six topics which I hope will be helpful to others.

"Back To The Future" - Collaboration In The 21st Century

I have been reading up on Cisco Systems and its CEO, John Chambers lately. This was prompted by references to Cisco's leadership in utilizing Web 2.0 tools at Cisco. What I have been learning about in addition is how Chambers is transforming the Cisco organization in the direction of what some have called Management 2.0 with very positive results.

Existing With Knowledge

I recently attended a lecture during which the lecturer discussed a quote from Franz Kafka. The lecture was unrelated to the topics of this blog. Nevertheless, I started to see some connections.

The quote from Kafka is:

"Leopards break into the temple and drink to the dregs what is in the sacrificial pitchers; this is repeated over and over again; finally, it can be calculated in advance, and becomes part of the ceremony."

(Franz Kafka, "Leopards in the Temple," Parables and Paradoxes, 93.)

The lecturer pointed out the good news and the bad news reflected in this quote.

The good news is that the wild leopards loose in the temple have been tamed or at least have been made predictable. The disturbing image represented in this quote no longer has the power to disturb.

The bad news is that we have lost touch with that wildness, unpredictability and excitement and the creative moment when this adventure was first unfolding.

It was at this point that my mind went back to the world of Knowledge Management.

Collaboration Then And Now

Is the practice of collaboration the same today as it was ten years ago? Will it be the same next year or the year after? I am coming to the conclusion that "yes," in fact, collaboration is different today and will be different next year as well. How it is different and how to make explicit that difference is the challenging part.

Collaboration remains a major key to our existence as a living and working society. It has become more a part of daily life. What is different is the path to collaboration.

A Bifurcated Relationship

The integrated focus on content and personal interaction in traditional collaboration is changing to a more bifurcated focus in a Web 2.0 environment where sharing content and personal interaction can exist separately. This has ramifications in terms of what are appropriate actions to support collaboration in a Web 2.0 environment.