Enterprise 2.0 Social Software is appealing for many reasons, but a core value is the facilitation of emergence. Many in our community may quibble with McAfee's definition of Enterprise 2.0 but I think all will agree that the need to support emergence is a key trait. However, an emergent discussion shines a light on the interacting role of structure and emergence.

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Glen Alleman at Herding Cats offers really nice distinctions in Risks and Issues Are Not The Same. In the course of working with a lot of teams as they deploy TeamPage as a project wiki, I've seen a wide range of terms for project artifacts. The more these concepts are discussed and hashed out, the better.

At our market launch in 2002, I recall all kinds of skepticism passing off the wiki and blog markets as a fad. Today, with a complete social software platform and the most robust wiki framework on the market, we are skiing on Gartner's Slope of Enlightenment. Gartner reports that Social Software suites are headed for the trough of disillusionment (a good and necessary transition before hitting the slope of enlightenment), though our customer case studies show little illusion about the tangible and necessary business value delivered by Traction TeamPage. » Read Gartner's press release and ReadWriteWeb's report. ReadWriteWeb's writeup.

I found Tom Davenport's discussion of Why 1.5 is Greater than 2.0 by way of Bill Ives in Mixing Old and New School Communication. Davenport talks about the social reasons in favor of a blend between social and traditional approaches. I think an answer to How 1.5, in this context, is Greater than 2.0 is both social and structural.

Innovation starts with words, and ways to convey them.

These case studies are a taste of how ideas and issues turn into action, how tasks evolve from conversations and how boundaries have to appear to disappear for W2.0 ideas to meet E2.0 execution. See you at E2.0.

Recent posts by Michael Sampson, John Tropea and Thomas Vander Wal converge on the need for Enterprise 2.0 tools to smash the silos segregating content types and isolating workspaces.

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A tweet from John Tropea identifies our Kuka Systems case study as the "Seminal enterprise 2.0 task based / process solution." THANKS! I can't imagine a better endorsement of a case study, or the product supporting it.

This conversation started with Stewart Mader and continues with Bill Ives. While most of our customers run the easy installer and are up and running readily, many benefit from our front end advice as well as more formal professional services engagements. This exchange offers two simple benefits that are strategic to the customers and to the software producer (and, in turn, to the customers).

Last fall, I pointed out an issue of trust as part and parcel of Web 2.0 security (See What Web 2.0 and E2.0 Security Means to Me). When we accept social services like Facebook and Twitter as Two of Three Places for People, we entrust them to manage our data securely, to keep consistent terms (i.e. they don't suck us in and then suck us dry by starting to charge for basic services), and to be there when we need them. Today, I felt muzzled as I was touched by the uptime issue. I got this "over capacity" memo when I went to Tweet an answer to Dave Lamp's Question. I've received the "over capacity" messages several times and will continue, for now, to trust they'll iron things out over at Twitter HQ.

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I took a long needed vacation last week and came back to the usual firestorm of post-vacation pile-up that makes one pause before entertaining the idea of another break. Anyhow, after meeting a few high priority deadlines, I had time this afternoon to review everything posted to our TeamPage server in the last 2 weeks.

Chris Nuzum and I had a chance to speak to the Providence Geeks about what we've done with Traction TeamPage and how "Pages are Crushing Documents." I do a history of our company and transition into a history of communication and collaboration that runs the course from stone tablets to books through email and documents and finally culminates in wikis and blogs. Now that wikis and blogs are becoming the new currency of collaboration and communication, my presentation focuses on how "packaging matters" with particular focus on the ways pages can be re-used and distributed in ways that can improve communication performance and enable innovation like we've never seen it before. Caught on "film" are my talk followed by a video podcast interview.

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Matt Hodgson's the ROI of Being Social at Work points to recent MIT research suggesting 40% of productivity for creative teams is a direct result of communication and employees with the most extensive digital networks are 7% more productive.

In tough economic times organizations are faced with hard budgeting choices as they weigh the cost and benefit of investing in durable goods, people, marketing and software. Here are some reasons why software should be at the top of the list:

We've seen our US Government and state level customers seek out and achieve great success as they make their own migrations to "2.0" style collaboration with TeamPage. While "grasss roots" action at the agency level is encouraging, top down involvement and mandates tend to accelerate the proces. With Obama's Transparency and Open Government mandate, perhaps we have it!

I like what Seth Godin says in What are you good at? Where he talks about the distinction between content (domain expertise) and process (emotional intelligence skills you have for managing projects, visualizing success, dealing with priorities and so on).

One more data point in line of my Whither Web 2.0 Social Networking Discussion which questions the revenue models of web services (with web social networking as a focal point): An on-line service the scale and scope of Microsoft's Online Services is running into red ink of proportional scale. It lost $471 Million per last quarter. The clear and present issue is not whether a profit may be turned at some even-large scale, but what will change about the business model and how will that affect users?

By moving communication and knowledge exchange to web pages, social software breaks down the walls that traditionally divide e-mail communication and traditional folder based document sharing. As discussed at the conclusion of So, What About Enterprise Social Networking?, this style of interacting online opens avenues for content enrichment and exploitation.

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Last week's post, Wither Web 2.0 Social Networking? and My 2 Cents., offers my perspective on the murky future of web facing personal social networking, as well as a recipe for its survival. The Enterprise Social Networking market, meanwhile, is growing up more steadily in the wake of its Web 2.0 sibling and, despite some commonalities, faces a different value equation, use cases and market forces.

Michael Fitzgerald's MIT Tech Review column Are Social Networks Sinking? summarizes the inevitable deflation (though not all-out devastation) of the Web 2.0 Social Networking market (not to be mixed with the Enterprise 2.0 market - which is growing more steadily in-the-wake-of, rather than in-step-with, the Web 2.0 market) bubble.