Posts Tagged ‘web 2.0’

About Enterprise 2.0 and the New World of Work

Sunday, May 17th, 2009

At this moment there is a lot of discussion going on about the New World of Work. In the New World of Work the new developments of the Internet 2.0 (Social Networks, Blogging, Twittering, etc) are used to Speed up the Work of the Knowlegde Worker. The infrastructure to make this possible is called Enterprise 2.0.

Enterprise 2.0 is : A System of Web (2.0)-Based Technologies that provide rapid and agile Collaboration, Information Sharing, emergence and integration capabilities in the Extended Enterprise. An Extended Enterprise is a Supply or Value Chain.

The definition of Enterprise 2.0 is constantly changing because Enterprise 2.0 is still a Concept. Many people are now struggeling to move from the concept/idea-stage to the realization-phase.

The main issue behind de term “Web 2.0” is the move from a Sender/Receiver-model, the One-Sided Website, to a more Collaborative use of the Internet (Discussions, Social Networks). According to the Inventors of the term Web 2.0 the “new web”, is a Collaborative Web.

For some reason they have forgotten that the World Wide Web (WWW) software of Tim Berners Lee was part of a Collaborative Platform to support the scientists that Participated in a Network called DARPANET. This network was created by DARPA, the Technological Think-Tank of the American Army in 1957!.

What is the definition of the term “Collaboration”?

The word “collaborate” comes from the Latin “Collaboratus” meaning “Work (Labore) together (Col)”. The term “to-gather” comes from the term “gadurojan” which means “in good fellowship” or “United“. When you Collaborate you are not working Alone but with Others United in Good Fellowship.

The Potential to Collaborate is an Aspect of the Personality.

The Personality Types of the Human Being can be described with two variables Agency and Communion. Comm-Union is the capability to Col-Laborate, to accomplish a Union. The variable Agency describes your relationship between the Self and the Other.

When you are High in Communion and Low in Agency you are suffering from a Dependent Personality Disorder. This disorder is characterized by a pervasive psychological dependence on other people. You always want to Collaborate and are very Emotional.

When you are High in Communion and High in Agency you are suffering from a Histrionic Personality Disorder. People with a Histrionic Personality Disorder have good social skills, but they tend to use these skills to manipulate other people to become the Center of Attention. They are very Imaginative.

According to Interpersonal Theory a “normal” person is able to Combine Two or More Interpersonal Faculties.

There are two Disorders left called Paranoid (High Agency, Low Communion) and Schizophrenic (Low Agency, Low Communion). Paranoid people have a big problem with their Expectation. They want to control the Future and Every Person in their Context. Schizophrenic people are completely influenced by their mostly Visual Senses. They See what they Want to See.

If you combine the Four Interpersonal Faculties (Emotions, Imagination, Expectations and Senses) Twelve Interpersonal, Collaborative, Patterns emerge. A good example is the Master(Paranoid)/Slave(Dependent)-Relationship (Expectation/Emotions). Some People Love to be Dominated by the Other.

Interpersonal Faculties can be combined into Collaborative Work Patterns.

In my blog about Vocation I showed that work is an Expression of the Personality. If you believe this is True and you believe Interpersonal Theory is True you have to admit there are Twelve Types of Work.

When you are highly Imaginative and Sensitive (You Believe Your Own Eyes, You are Realistic, Factual) you are an Entrepreneur, You want to bring An Idea into Reality. To Find the Facts you need an Information System to Investigate what is Happening. The Internet with all its Sources of Information is a beautiful tool to use.

To bring an Idea into Practice you have to Realize the Idea. In this case you need a Designer (Transform Ideas into Models) and a Maker (Bring Models into Reality). A Maker is not a Collaborative person (Low Communion). Makers want to work Alone.

When you create a Team of Makers to Realize your Idea the Team will fail. To avoid Competition the Designer has to define a Model (An Architecture and a Project Plan) in which all the Lonesome Workers are able to do their Specialized Job.

I hope you believe we are able to define a complete (meta)-Architecture and a (meta)-Plan to move around in the (meta)-Work-Space.

What is the Relationship between the Work Patterns and Enterprise 2.0?

An Enterprise is a combination of many people with many Collaborative Work-patterns. We could Specialize an Enterprise to perform one kind of Pattern. If we Specialize an Enterprise we have to combine many Enterprises in an Extended Enterprise to do Everything we Want to Do.

We need a Designer Company, A Sales Company, Visionairs, Entrepeneurs and other Roles to cover the Complete Spectrum of Work. If We want to Produce we always need the Makers. The Makers need a well defined Structure (A Hierarchy), a Plan and an Architecture, to operate in.

At this moment Enterprise 2.0 is nothing but a Concept. Somebody of High Agency and High Communion (A Creator) has gotten the Idea that the new 2.0 Internet is able to support an Enterprise.

 He hopes that the new tools will break down the Hierarchical Structure of the Organization of the Makers. Creators don’t like Hierarchies. They love Networks. If Creators are One-Sided, Histrionic, they want to Stay in the Center of Attention of the Network.

What Creators don’t realize is that Makers, the Majority of the Human Beings,  don’t want to use Collaborative Tools. They want to work Alone in their own Specialized Compartment of the Beehive.

Enterprise 2.0 is a Concept to support Innovation. Someday the Innovation has to be Stabilized. If we want to do that we still need Enterprise 1.0, The Factory until we find another Solution (The Robots?).

Don’t forget the Worker Bees. They Bring in the Honey.

Things you Cannot Buy

Wednesday, July 25th, 2007

To define a long term strategy, we have to predict the future. To predict the future we have to understand the past. The longer we look back, the better we can look forward.

Everything is determinated by cycles. A well know cycle is the Kondratiev. This is the cycle of Innovation. Its cycles-time is about 53 years.

Fifty years ago a new innovation in computing was emerging, the IBM 360. The 360, the All Purpose Computer, became a standard in computing.

A hundred years ago the big factories of Ford and Taylor were dominating the world. It is not difficult to see that the IBM 360 was the next step in the ideal of Taylor to produce a fully mechanized production-facility.

Funny enough the most important innovation of our time, The Internet, can be seen as an IBM 360 where the connectors between the processors (now called servers) are far away.

The capacity of the current network, transporting the standardized (XML-)messages from server to server is so enormous that is it almost possible to work real-time.

Does this mean that the next step of Innovation will be one central operating system that is controlling the Internet?

To find out what will happen we have to look at a new long term cycle, the cycle of Culture. Its periodicity is about 250 years. 250 years ago we are in the time of the French Revolution.

The bourgeoisie (the new entrepreneurs) hated the decadent Kings and the people took over the Power (Liberté, Égalité, and Fraternité). In the end the Centralized State, its centralized institutions, and finally the Centralized Companies were created. At this moment we are in a comparable situation.

The Central State en the big companies are, just like the Kings in the 18th Century, loosing their power. The People, now called customers, are looking for an alternative.

The big Companies are showing ‘decadent” behavior. They are wasting valuable resources ((tax) money) and are delivering a low quality of service. The customers (and the citizens) are highly dissatisfied. If nothing is done the possibility of a new Revolution is not zero.

In software, we see the rising of the Open-Source Movement. It is a rebellion against the power of the big software companies (especially Microsoft). We are in a time of reconstruction and it will take many years before the new stable infrastructure will arise (called Web 2.0).

Of course Google will be a certain winner. It will be one of the major worldwide Powers of IT for a long time. They are centralizing the Internet.

If we look for the short term we can use the Juglar cycle (10 years). This cycle predicts a movement from Individuality (I do it Myself) to the Collective (Let’s do it together). 

Collaboration will be a major issue the next ten years. Google is utilizing this trend by buying many companies that are offering “sharing services”.

The interesting question is Will Google win or will the Open Source Movement win?

My intuition tells it will be the last one. The Open Source Movement is much more flexible in their response. Google is rich and will become richer. The Open Source Movement is not based on money but on enthusiasm (Spirit) and E-motivation (Soul) and a very important point Craftsmanship. These are things you cannot buy.