Is Enterprise 2.0 for Babies or Boomers?

June 13, 2007 · · Posted by Jordan Frank

ImageJoe McKendrick asks "Is Web 2.0 Really Dominated by the Young?" and offers some data suggesting its for people of all ages, though under 25ers are the majority in communities like MySpace. In the enterprise, however, there is a question as to whether 2.0 adoption is better started with younger or more experienced management-level employees.

A tally of customers I've worked with tilts highly in favor of boomers over babies. The best outcomes consistently occur when some level of management gets behind an initiative and key stakeholders agree to a consistent process for using blogs and wikis.

It is this shared understanding and support which provides consistent year on year success and growth at customer sites ranging from link 'WSIN (a justice department law enforcement watch center) public423, to a European Pharmaceutical group, IJIS (a non-profit), Enel (a Global 100 power plant operator), ShoreBank, and the UK's NHS Orkney.

This is not to say that forced collaboration is good collaboration, but to say that aligning support for an Enterprise 2.0 effort across all stakeholders, from boomers to babies, is the best way to knock down techno-phobia and cultural barriers that plague pure bottom-up approaches. In fact, in these cases the so-called cultural issues seemed to dissolve completely.

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