Don Tapscott - Enterprise 2.0 - Lecture
CSC Executive Exchange, Pebble Beach, CA
03/10/08
Don Tapscott is the author of Wikinomics http://www.wikinomics.com/ and general Digital Strategist. He talks in high concept and anecdote with not so much real middle ground (as defined by his answers to more tactical questions). It seems that it is up to you to get it done. He does a great job of giving you the vision and then backing it up with examples of where it has occurred. More than most commentators and prognosticators, he is modest enough (not sure really, but he gives the impression) to acknowledge that it is the ‘kids’ who have all the ideas, execute the reality and live and breathe the vision – and that is where he gets his ideas. He has an ongoing program using youthful panelists to maintain his connection to the seedbed of innovation yet also has the name recognition and clout to have access to a lot of the corporations, governments and leaders that like to discuss and sometimes implement these new paradigm shifts in their world e.g. Canadian Government mass democracy experiments, economic leaders at the Davos WEF etc. I feel like his academic research program puts him apart from some of the less rigorous business writers, but what do I know?
Overall, a great lecture and discussion, a few laughs along with some excellent insight, even though it is less cutting edge than it was when he wrote it. Ah, the perils of writing about an incredibly agile and changing topic. We had a long Q&A session that ranged from the strategic – lack of government support for globalizing businesses (strong insight) – to the tactical – how to engage the older employees who do not have collaboration or the tools in their DNA (weaker answer) - to the trivial – Android vs. iPhone (generic answer). Although only briefly, the discussion even devolved into a peer-level conversation between the client participants, which if nothing else, proved the benefit of peering since the crowd were often able to offer better tactical advice than Don.
A great example of the wisdom of the commons was in response to a key question of how to engage the over 40’s employees in collaborative efforts. Many in the room had tried and failed to get engagement from the GenX and especially the Boomers and Tapscott relied on the forces of the market to drive participation as the young’uns use the tool and prove its worth. Not a foolproof plan in my experience.
The answer from the crowd, specifically from Robert Davis, a manager at Xerox Corp, was to seed the platform with content that resonates with your intended audience. His suggestion was to put on the retirement plan data. Guaranteed to get the over-40s jawing on the platform. Seed a few discussions of experiences and best practices and you are off to the Boomer Web2.0 races?
1. Prosumer-ism - not the confluence of professional and consumer but that of producer and consumer. We see it everyday at Amazon, ebay, yelp!, facebook etc. - the consumer also produces either all or most of the content of the business. What can your consumers teach you. Tapscott uses the Boeing example for the co-innovation of the 787 Dreamliner with its suppliers. Could it have been even better with the early involvement of airlines and even end-consumers. We frequent fliers are full of good ideas for cabins, flight crew would be similarly powerful.
2. Filters - how do you find the great stuff in the collaborative melee? Two things - a) search, and b) the action of the crowd. Better search is well known - smarter algorithms such as Google's evolving PageRank "standard" are continuing to increase the relevance of search results although specific tweaks to the algorithms would be great for corporate use. The power of the crowd to filter is that the crowd raises the popular to the top. The best ideas are commented on, tagged, socially bookmarked etc. and rise to the top of the smart search rankings. Bingo - brilliance by acclamation.
There will be more to come but lunch is coming and the first tee beckons... love the corporate jolly!
The presentation (or at least last year's version) can be found here...
