It seems that as the web is growing there are more and more opportunities for the ISP to grow their business and find new revenue opportunities.  This is good news as it shows that a creative ISP can grow an entire new business model beyond the voice, video and data "triple play."   I believe that this new area of opportunities will be hosting and providing complete Enterprise 2.0 solutions to businesses.

So, what are Enterprise 2.0 applications?  According to Harvard Business School's Andrew McAfee they use freeform, emergent, social software to enable ad hoc collaboration.  McAfee's work essentially applies and combines many of the key Web 2.0 concepts of social software, user generated content, and discoverability via search to the workplace. Given the popularity of these things out on the Web, a number of companies have begun to seriously consider his ideas.  Some of them have even begun building products labeled as "Enterprise 2.0" solutions and we may be witnessing this as part of a larger trend of moving the consumer world of Web 2.0 into the enterprise. 

According to McAfee, modern Web 2.0 software (at least the successful ones) introduces ideas that deal with classic user adoption challenges that enterprise software tends not to directly address.  In particular, despite what they're given to use, users "vote with their feet" and prefer software tools that are simplest, most effective, and most familiar.

Key to this discussion is that, unlike Web users, these individuals tend to have very few software options in the enterprise and are usually prescribed the tools to use to get their work done.  And when faced with a dizzying array of features and capabilities in their shiny new, sophisticated enterprise IT systems, they tend to default to the tools that are easiest for them, over which they have the most control, and are most familiar with.  These "comfort apps" are things like plain old e-mail and Microsoft Office.

The fact is, most procedures in the often bureaucratic world of business are seeking specific predefined outcomes that are often driven to completion without measurement for effect or optimization.  For example, software must have the features - and only the features - laid out in the original requirements list; processes must have the same repeatable, measurable results each and every time; and budgeted activities should generate only what was intended from the outset, with little expectation that significant unexpected results will occur and need to be managed, much less exploited.

Yet it seems clearer these days that highly general purpose software like simple e-mail, blogs, wikis, and other social software can enable and form the foundation of almost uncounted open ended and adaptable collaboration scenarios.  A real-world example of effective, useful, truly emergent collaboration is last year's PeopleFinder project (aka KatrinaList)  and shows the real potential that can be tapped if - and only if - you have seeded your organization with these tools and found a way to make them the easiest, default choice for the workers in an organization.

Does all this mean we're challenged for techniques to solicit contributions and emergent output from our workers?  Very likely; getting workers to move much of their work from private, undiscoverable tools to social, public, freeform tools will undoubtedly be a challenge; and ironically a challenge that most organizations won't be likely to take on without knowing the outcomes. Several things are clear from this, and I hope the diagram above shows this well.  One is that traditional enterprise software development processes have probably continued to impose too much control and predefinition in the two major stages of the software lifecycle, the first being the creation and/or procurement of software, and second in its actual adoption and use in the organization.  Like agile software development - and to a greater extent Web 2.0 software development techniques in general - has shown us that lack of active, end-user driven feedback loops results in software that just doesn't do what is needed and doesn't evolve gracefully when the local landscape inevitably does.

The second thing that seems apparent is that there is little to no software competition within the enterprise.  This is very different from the Web where users will flock to the easiest, most effective tools given good options that number in the dozens - and often hundreds - of potential, easy-to-switch-to solutions (think about why you use a given Web client for e-mail.)  Enterprises that don't learn from the co-evolution process of development that many successful Web 2.0 sites are using to "find" the right set of features and capabilities are likely acquiring software that few users will find useful or effective.  This may be the biggest legacy that McAfee's work gives us; that emergent, social software results in:

1) Richer, reusable information ecologies in our organizations ala the Web, and

2) A workable framework for co-developed situational software based on social software platforms that can readily adapt to what users need at a given point in time.

I have been asked by various readers of my column what are some of the new applications that an ISP can get involved with and create new and innovative revenue opportunities from - I recommend you watch the trends of Web 2.0!

Paul Zukowski
www.zukowski.biz