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Kevin Ruess Marshall April 2008

Utilizing Web 2.0 Technology to Enhance Enterprise Knowledge Management

Abstract As global competition increases and organizations succeed in proportion to their ability to

innovate, operate efficiently, and provide excellent service to their customers, it is imperative to

organizations that they excel at managing their internal knowledge. Knowledge, when effectively

applied by knowledge workers, is considered by most organizations to be the most valuable

asset. This work explores deeply the concept of knowledge, modern industry standards in

knowledge management and knowledge management systems, current limitations and drawbacks

to knowledge management, and the immense benefits that Web 2.0 technologies applied to

knowledge management has to offer organizations. Web 2.0, specifically in communication

enhancing areas, will be crucial for organizations in the next several years to effectively manage,

retain, and redistribute their internal knowledge.

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ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................................................. 1

INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................................... 3

THE VALUE OF KNOWLEDGE ............................................................................................................................. 3

EXPLICIT VS TACIT KNOWLEDGE .............................................................................................................................. 4

ORGANIZATIONAL LOSS OF TACIT KNOWLEDGE ....................................................................................................... 5

UTILIZING EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE ............................................................................................................................. 6

CURRENT AND LEGACY KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS ......................................................... 7

SHORTCOMINGS WITH CURRENT KM SYSTEMS ....................................................................................................... 11

THE NEED FOR INCREASED COLLABORATION .......................................................................................................... 14

THE PROMISE OF WEB 2.0 TECHNOLOGIES IN ORGANIZATIONS ........................................................ 14

SPECIFIC BUSINESS APPLICATIONS OF WEB 2.0 TOOLS ........................................................................................... 16

Wikis ................................................................................................................................................................... 16

Blogs .................................................................................................................................................................. 18

RSS Feeds ........................................................................................................................................................... 19

Social Networking .............................................................................................................................................. 20

Folksonomy ........................................................................................................................................................ 21

Media Management ............................................................................................................................................ 22

CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................................................... 22

REFERENCES .......................................................................................................................................................... 24

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Introduction In today’s world of business, companies need to understand the importance of effectively

managing their knowledge. Years ago, employees would stay with a company for many years

before moving on while many planned upon a lifetime of dedication to their organization. In

today’s industries, it is not uncommon to find employees who stay no more than three to four

years without looking to move on. When a company loses a skilled employee, they also lose the

knowledge that the employee has gained.

This paper explores the concept of knowledge, current knowledge practices, and how

Web 2.0 technology will be instrumental in ensuring that companies and organizations are

competitive and effective. Web 2.0 applied to the business setting, otherwise known as

Enterprise 2.0, has emerged as one of the most valuable technologies to assist organizations in

managing their knowledge. The paper will demonstrate how various Web 2.0 tools are applied to

enterprise settings and the benefits organizations have realized thus far.

The Value of Knowledge It is important to note the difference between knowledge and information. Knowledge

experts Dr. Chun Wei Choo and Dr. Nick Bontis write, “. . . information is a flow of messages,

while knowledge is created and organized by the very flow of information, anchored on the

commitment and beliefs of its holder.” (Ikujiro, 2002) We can see then how vital the human

interpretation and interaction with the flow of information is in order to create knowledge.

Another way of looking at this definition is that while information can be stored in any one place

with or without human presence (such as a storage drive), knowledge can only exist in the minds

of humans.

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With this understanding of knowledge, we can see how the term “knowledge

management” is less about managing information, but how to better transfer and share

information between humans within an organization. It is important to see why the specific

individual interpretation of information has such value for companies. The interpretations that

employees make about the information they receive affect their decisions as employees. These

decisions have great impact upon the organization in either a positive or negative way.

Let us consider a very simple example. A skilled factory worker on an automobile whose

job it is to inspect cars as they roll off the assembly line “receives information” (or notices) that

the lug nuts are lose on a front left wheel. The data means nothing as it is nor is it considered

necessarily good or bad by the laws of Newtonian physics – a lose nut is simply a lose nut.

However the human interpretation here is absolutely crucial, for if the knowledge worker

interprets a lose nut as “negative,” the worker will make a decision to tighten the lug nuts and

thereby save the company potentially thousands of dollars by preventing an accident as the car

drives off the line. The interpretation of the lose nut as a “problem” and the steps that should be

taken afterwards is knowledge.

Explicit Vs Tacit Knowledge Michael Polanyi split knowledge into types, explicit and tacit. Explicit knowledge is

knowledge that can be written down or codified in a formal language and usually kept on record.

(Ikujiro, 2002) Some common examples are operations manuals, informational books,

specifications, mathematical expressions, verbal speech, and even software code. With explicit

knowledge, the interpretation of data in the human mind is more easily expressed and symbols

are used to express that for interpretation at a later time.

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Tacit knowledge differs from explicit knowledge in that it is more difficult to express in

terms of symbols, codes, and formal languages. Dr. Chun Wei Choo and Dr. Nick Bontis

describe tacit as “. . . deeply rooted in action, commitment, and involvement in a specific

context.” (Ikujiro, 2002) Michael Polanyi’s famous words about tacit knowledge were, "We

know more than we can tell." (Ikujiro, 2002) Tacit knowledge is usually learned over a period of

time by experience and practice. We could consider hands-on learning a very effective way to

gain tacit knowledge.

Organizational Loss of Tacit Knowledge Tacit knowledge is usually more valuable than explicit knowledge for organizations.

Having a manual on how to operate a computer program is much less valuable than having a

human being who possesses a tacit knowledge of how to operate the computer program, and does

it well. While it is true that a human that has no knowledge of how to operate the computer

program can learn over time with the help of explicit knowledge, time is valuable and costly.

Work will get done in a shorter amount of time by the employee who already has a tacit

knowledge of the computer program than by the person who must develop that knowledge –

thereby saving money for the organization. This is not to say that explicit knowledge has no

value however – quite the contrary. The reality is that organizational change always occurs and

employees come and go. An employee with no tacit knowledge of how to operate a machine but

who has access to explicit knowledge of how to operate the machine through a well documented

user manual, is much more valuable than an employee who does not have either tacit or explicit

knowledge of the machine’s operations. True, tacit knowledge can be gained by a human without

explicit knowledge through simple trial and error, but the time it takes to develop that tacit

knowledge will be a waste of explicit knowledge were available.

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As noted earlier, when a human leaves an organization for whatever reason, their tacit

knowledge is also lost. The consequences of this loss can range anywhere from a small financial

amount to the loss of a solid competitive advantage. An example of this was the hiring of a Dr.

Kai-Fu Lee, former Vice President of Microsoft’s Interactive Services Division by Google in

2005. Google hired Dr. Lee to head its search engine operations in China, due to his extensive

experience. Microsoft felt so threatened by this incident that it sued both Dr. Lee and Google for

his threat to leave. (Fried, 2005) Dr. Lee’s immense value stemmed from his extensive tacit

knowledge of search engine design and his grasp on how to successfully operate in China’s

expanding marketplace. In this case, a great competitive advantage was gained by Google and

lost by Microsoft simply by the exchange of one person and all the tacit knowledge paired with a

will to enact that knowledge. Even if Dr. Lee were willing to convert all of his tacit knowledge

into explicit knowledge in the form of notes before he left Microsoft, this would be of little help

in reducing the damages Microsoft felt. Thus the question arises, how do organizations reduce

the negative consequences felt by losing this important knowledge?

Utilizing Explicit Knowledge While explicit knowledge is far less powerful than tacit knowledge from the point of

view of getting things done by knowledge workers, it is an absolute necessity. Unless technology

is developed that can transfer tacit knowledge from one human brain to another, the only known

way of transferring knowledge from one human to another is through explicit knowledge. Those

with tacit knowledge must do the best they can to clearly describe and express their

understanding explicitly through some sort of medium such as paper, a digital document, or

through verbal presentation. The human attempting to gain explicit knowledge in that area must

then study the material doing their best to conceptualize the descriptions and attempt to act upon

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the instructions given explicitly. In most cases, the explicit knowledge serves as a very generic

guideline for the learner who uses his/her mind and body to experience the new process, slowly

developing their own tacit knowledge. Depending upon various factors such as a person’s

persona, past experiences, and bodily limitations, that person’s tacit knowledge will never be

identical to anyone else’s even if it is of the same subject matter. Thus, each person will develop

their own unique tacit understanding.

The key for organizations to successfully and quickly transfer tacit knowledge from

human to human is to perfect their use of explicit knowledge exchange. Organizations must

strive to improve employees’ creation of explicit knowledge as well as their techniques for

training and teaching from explicit knowledge. Explicit knowledge creation that is clear, concise,

and filled with examples will be more helpful in the transfer of information than knowledge

which is convoluted and confusing.

Current and Legacy Knowledge Management Systems For most organizations, once explicit data is recorded in a designated medium, the

explicit knowledge needs to be organized and manipulated in some way for optimal learning.

This is where knowledge management comes in. Knowledge management promises a better way

for organizations to organize, share, interpret, and teach information amongst their employees.

Organizational behavior expert Thomas Davenport notes that firms often become interested in

knowledge management they “realize that they do not know where to find their own existing

knowledge.” (Dean, 2005)

Management consultant and professor Peter Drucker defines knowledge management as

“. . . the coordination and exploitation of organizations’ knowledge resources, in order to create

benefit and competitive advantage.” (Dean, 2005) The use of the word “exploitation” is powerful

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here in this definition for it points to the often hidden patterns and implications of knowledge

that are only revealed when properly managed. We can see that a large benefit to knowledge

management is making use of an organization’s expertise and talent by helping to replicate that

expert knowledge across the organization.

Organizations that learn to manage their knowledge successfully through the use of new

processes, technology, and cultural shifts can benefit greatly. Davenport and Prusak describe that

companies who successfully manage their knowledge will always be a step ahead of competitors.

While competitors will usually be able to catch up in time, a company which utilizes its

knowledge to a high degree will be more creative, have better quality of products and services,

and be more efficient. (Davenport, Prusak, 1998)

Industry practices around creating knowledge management systems (KMS) vary from

company to company and from expert to expert. While there is no “right” way to implement a

KMS, there are certain best practices that are often utilized. A knowledge management system

means more than just technology, but includes an actual system with processes that employees

must adopt and utilize on a consistent basis. Kiri Nesbitt offers a plan for successful knowledge

management implementation. We will look at each step in detail: (Dean, 2005)

1) “Define the business goals the KM system will address.” (Dean, 2005)

The goal of a knowledge management system is to utilize knowledge more efficiently to

leverage competitive advantage. While this seems straightforward, it is not always simple. One

of the most problematic misconceptions with knowledge management (KM) is that you can

achieve instant success by purchasing and investing into the right knowledge management

technology. “The biggest misconception that IT leaders make is that knowledge management is

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about technology” write Shir Nir from a knowledge management consultation firm in New York.

(Dean, 2005)

2) “Perform a knowledge audit to identify any duplication, gaps, and overlaps in an

organization's knowledge base.” (Dean, 2005)

An audit will help to determine the types of knowledge that the organization contains.

There are many ways to differentiate between knowledge types. Internal knowledge would

include inside analysis created within the organization versus outside analysis. Formal

knowledge would consist of official internal business procedures and policies vs. informal

discussions and correspondence. Securable knowledge would include best practices and trade

secrets which give competitive advantage as well as secured knowledge which include already

protected patents and intellectual property. Finally, organizations will have historical knowledge,

lessons learned from past events and practices, as well as future knowledge, proposals and plans

for the future. (Maier, 2008)

Next in the audit we look at where knowledge resides in the organization. There are

commonly three places that knowledge dwells: employee minds, artifacts such as documents and

media which contain written knowledge, and with the knowledge management system itself.

(Maier, 2008)

3) “Create a visual map which describes units of knowledge and the relationships between

them.” (Dean, 2005)

Before many knowledge management systems are put into place, information is scattered

here and there making its value low. It is the connections between information that makes

knowledge so powerful and which makes a KMS so effective. Thus, the visual map starts to

draw important connections between areas of information within an organization

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4) “Develop a KM strategy based on the content management, integration, search mechanisms,

information delivery, and collaboration.” (Dean, 2005)

Knowledge management systems currently use a number of methods to increase and expand

organizational knowledge. Later, we will see how Web 2.0 technologies can take KM systems to

an entirely new level. Currently however, a knowledge management strategy will include

implementing systems that will help organize information in the following areas:

• Business processes

• Products and services

• Findings of studies – internal and external

• Lessons learned

• Best practices

• Ideas and proposals

• Frequently asked questions (perhaps of new employees)

• Directories (employees, biz partners, communities)

• Internal official communication (company/department emails & memos)

(Maier, 2007)

Besides organizing existing information, companies need to strategize methods of

creating new knowledge as well as retaining and sharing it. Such strategies will need to include a

cultural shift and an encouraging push from top executives for long-term change to be

established. Davenport and Prusak suggest establishing an appreciation for the value of

knowledge from top executives so that employees recognize its importance. (Davenport, Prusak,

1998)

5) “Purchase or build appropriate tools for capturing, analyzing, categorizing and distributing

knowledge.” (Dean, 2005)

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Currently many knowledge management systems utilize technology that is based upon

data repositories accessed through client applications, groupware, and business analytic tools.

While we will discuss the advantages of utilizing Web 2.0 to either add-to or replace many of

these technologies later, for now we will look at some of the current standards in KM systems:

• Document Management

• Data Warehousing

• Group Decision Support Systems

• Search Engines

• Communication systems

• Artificial Intelligence

(Maier, 2007)

6) “Periodically re-asses the value of the KM system and make necessary adjustments.”

The final step is of course to assess the success of current knowledge management

practices as well as technologies to determine areas for change and improvement.

Shortcomings with Current KM Systems Harvard professor Dr. Andrew McAfee writes in MIT’s Sloan Business Review that “. . .

it’s probably safe to say that within most companies most knowledge work practices and output

are invisible to most people.” (McAfeee, 2006) Since the mid to later nineties, companies

invested millions of dollars into knowledge management technology to help get a grasp on their

ever increasing amount of knowledge which for many organizations was becoming chaotic.

These systems, as described above, did a good job at keeping better track of the volumes of

documents and data floating around most companies. With the help of knowledge repositories

and specialists which sift through company data to highlight and extract the most important

information, knowledge management systems were successful in many ways. Yet, have

traditional knowledge management systems enabled the dream of what KM systems could be?

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Did they allow for a highly interactive exchange of ideas and experienced-based knowledge from

experts to novices within companies? Did their existence allow for a high level of innovation

because of the rapid communication that they gave way to between knowledge workers? When

viewed from what they promised versus what they became, I would argue no.

McAfee goes on to highlight the core problems with most knowledge enabling

communication systems. The most common system for exchanging information and ideas in

organizations is email, followed by intranets. McAfee describes each of these systems as

channels for communication which both suffer limitations. Email systems, which are heavily

utilized at organizations, do not usually allow for cross communication between large groups of

people, but are considered ad-hoc where the communication is 1 to 1. Thus, a great idea shared

in an email usually involves 2 people. (McAfee, 2006) Yet even if a great idea is sent to 10

people in an organization, it is rarely archived or remembered by the system and that great idea

will be lost in the mix years down the road. Interestingly, 21% of knowledge workers felt that

email was over utilized in their organization and 15% felt that it actually reduced their level

output. (Davenport, 2005)

Intranets and corporate web sites are another heavily utilized channel of inter

communication within organizations. Unfortunately, most organizations’ intranets lack many of

the features found on the modern web and thus they give information in a static and one-

directional manner. They serve as great reference tools for employees to search well documented

knowledge held by the organization, but for specialized and uncommon questions, they are not as

helpful. However “their content is generated, or at least approved, by a small group” of people,

writes McAfee. (McAfee, 2006)

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A survey conducted by Thomas Davenport in 2005 brought to light that email is used in

great proportion to many other mediums of knowledge exchange. While email was used 45% of

the time (in average hours spent), portal websites were used only 8%. Oddly enough, knowledge

workers generally felt that email, while necessary, was overwhelming and time wasting, while

their attitudes toward portals and corporate web sites were more positive. (Davenport, 2005) On

the other hand, while employees appreciated the possibilities that corporate intranets offered,

only 44% out of 2138 knowledge workers surveyed by Forrester Research said that they usually

found what they were looking for on their intranets. (Morris, 2005) While current mediums for

learning and exchanging information within companies are being heavily utilized, there is a need

for more effective technologies to help companies retain and share more knowledge between

employees.

(Davenport, 2005)

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The Need for Increased Collaboration Business trends over the last few decades have moved toward geographical expansion

and the rise of globalization. Most large corporations are now considered multi-national, despite

their country of origin. It is not surprising that there is now a perceived need for better

collaboration between knowledge workers across organizations. Employees often familiarize

themselves instant messaging, blogs, audio and video conferencing and discussion forums in

their personal time, but have companies formally embraced and supported this trend during hours

of work? Information Systems professor Eoin Whelan notes that “. . . pressure is being placed on

organizations by the increased internationalization of business, resulting in collaboration and

cooperation becoming more distributed.” (Whelan, 2007) When these technologies first appeared,

they were geared towards consumers. Companies often saw tools such as instant messaging as a

way for employees to waste time. However, a survey by Information Week suggests that

organizations are finally starting to adopt these tools within the workplace as genuine ways to

improve communication between users. “Within a few years, rich, collaborative software

platforms that include a slate of technologies like wikis, blogs, integrated search, and unified

communications will be the norm . . .” (Whelan, 2007)

The Promise of Web 2.0 Technologies in Organizations Web 2.0 emerged into the scene in 2004 by O’Reilly Media as a way to explain the

sudden revolution that was being observed in the web since its inception. Tim O’Reilly discusses

how the concept of Web 2.0 was born out of a brainstorming session in which it was noted that “.

. . far from having "crashed", the web was more important than ever, with exciting new

applications and sites popping up with surprising regularity.” (O'Reilly, 2007) Some of the

principles of Web 2.0 which were observed at an early conference on the subject were:

• The Web As Platform – The web becomes a universal platform for all to utilize

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• Harnessing Collective Intelligence – The service gets better as more people use it

• Data is the Next Intel Inside – Those with the most helpful data will win

• End of the Software Release Cycle – Rather than big releases, constant evolution

• Lightweight Programming Models – Flexibility, open standards, and change

• Software Above the Level of a Single Device – Expandable beyond the PC

• Rich user experience – Interactivity and an “application-like” feel

(O’Reilly, 2005)

Web 2.0 is made possible with the use of key open standards, flexible, and ever changing

technologies such as AJAX, PHP, SOAP, CSS, and APIs. With the use of these tools, Web 2.0

has significantly improved one element of the web that before was not as powerful: two-way

communication and social networking. With static Web 1.0, content was developed on a web-

page where content mixed with display properties and was uploaded to a web site to be viewed

by the world. With Web 2.0 tools, the content is separated from browser display instructions so

that fresh content can be displayed as instantly as it is pushed to the site. Sites now allow users to

post reactions or comments instantly to content just read, send quick messages back and forth to

one another, and create or edit new content instantly without needing to be a webmaster. More

people are communicating within the world of the web than was possible before.

While, most of the principles mentioned in the list above have been geared toward

consumer end users who have received great services in exchange for their willingness to look at

relevant advertisements, business has recently begun to see the benefits of such interactivity for

the benefits of knowledge sharing within organizations. McAfee helped to popularize the term

“Enterprise 2.0” to describe this very phenomenon. Enterprise 2.0 takes Web 2.0 tools out of the

web designed for consumers and focuses on business requirements. Web 2.0 helped bring about

a much needed change to the web. O’Reilly points out that a common pattern of dotcoms that

survived the bubble burst of the early 2000s was their adapting to a platform based model of the

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web, which allowed for a great deal user interactivity compared to the early years of the web.

O’Reilly writes, “Could it be that the dot-com collapse marked some kind of turning point for the

web, such that a call to action such as "Web 2.0" might make sense?” (O’Reilly, 2005)

Just as Web 2.0 was a turning point for the web, so Enterprise 2.0 will be a turning point

for how companies manage their knowledge. Those organizations which resist the increase in

web enabled collaboration, communication, and information exchange and continue to operate

under the status quo may very well face the same fate that dotcoms experienced who did not shift

to a Web 2.0 mindset.

Fortunately, the adoption of Web 2.0 technology in a business setting will be more readily

accepted than the knowledge management systems of yore, as employees will already be

comfortable using these tools in their personal time. People enjoy the social interaction that Web

2.0 offers across the internet in general; it is what makes the web such a rewarding experience.

Millions flock to social networking sites daily to send each other messages, browse one another’s

profiles, and play virtual board games with friends. If business could create interactive

collaborative networking sites with even half the draw that sites like Facebook have, widespread

communication and knowledge sharing across organizations would increase.

Specific Business Applications of Web 2.0 Tools

Wikis Made popular to most by the ever growing online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, wikis are one

of the most powerful uses of Web 2.0 technology applied to increasing knowledge amongst

community members. The power of the wiki comes from its strong contrast from most other

reference materials in that its content is open and flexible to all community members. While

most reference materials are developed by a small minority of a community, organization, or

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society, the wiki is created by all, for all. The amount of content included in a wiki will often

greatly overshadow most official reference documents. For instance, Wikipedia currently offers

over 2 million articles while Encyclopaedia Britannica offers around 100,000 articles which

include its supplemental books. (Clegg, 2007) A database of information collected in a matter of

years over 20 times the size of one of the oldest and most prestigious encyclopedias in the world

indicates the muscle of Web 2.0 technology and its ability to generate knowledge.

Used in an organization, we can see how the Wiki offers what traditional knowledge

management systems promised to do, but never truly achieved. Wikis really allow employees to

share their data, information, and most importantly their experience and best practices for all to

read and learn from in a manner that will last year after year. While official company operations

and training manuals offer the basics as well as the “right” way to do things in an organization

(according to officials), the wiki offers a fresh way to for experienced employees to teach their

wisdom to inexperienced employees. It also gives way to a large and powerful living document,

which can be constantly changed and updated, thus changing as the company changes. Most

incredibly, it requires very little effort on the part of management.

According to an Information Week survey conducted 2007, only 6% of companies use

wikis company-wide. (Hoover, 2007) For those companies who do utilize them, the results have

been very positive. One manager at Dresdner Kleinwort for example was able to greatly reduce

the amount of email, which he felt generated little group knowledge, by requiring group

communication to be done through the company wiki. “I was getting 300 internal e-mail

messages a day. The great majority of them were completely irrelevant to me . . . I saw that wikis

were a better tool for a lot of our collaborative work. . .” The manager learned that if he put

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weekly meeting agendas on the wiki and asked people to respond to certain items through the

wiki versus through email, the entire group began interacting with the topics. (McAfee, 2006)

Blogs Blogs have been popular in general cyberspace for years now, used both as personal

journals made public and as a way for experts to quickly publish their opinions on a plethora of

topics for readers to read and respond to. The words of “web” and “log” are combined to create

the term “blog.”(Riley, 2006) Blogging technology allows anyone to be an instant publisher

without any background in website development or publishing. The collaborative power of blogs

usually comes in the form of reader comments that most blogging technology allows for. For

instance, an author can post a piece on her blog which expresses her opinion about a topic and

readers can “talk-back” to the author and to all other readers by noting whether they agree or

disagree. They can even rate the article by giving it one to five stars. Companies can take

advantage of this technology to present keep their employees up to date about a particular

project, they can use it to publish the monthly or quarterly message from the company’s CEO for

all to read, or they can utilize it to present new innovative concepts and ask for feedback for

readers.

Eastern Mountain Sports, an outdoor retail company based out of Massachusetts has been

connecting blogs with financial metrics. For example, if some shift in sales takes place in their

stores which shows up quickly in their financial metrics, blogs are used by store managers to

post their comments as to what they believe may be causing the fluctuation. (Neville, 2007)

The chart below gives an example of how internal blogging within organizations is on the

increase, yet still underutilized as a whole as compared with blogging outside of organizations.

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(McAfee, 2006)

RSS Feeds RSS or really simple syndication is a very powerful technology which allows websites to

constantly display new updated content as it flows in from different sources across the web

automatically. It is often the backbone of many news provider sites such as Yahoo! News and

Google News which get the majority of their news content syndicated automatically from news

providers such as Reuters and the Associated Press. Yet beyond providing news and headlines, it

can also be used to provide the latest in financial and other key metrics that are important to an

organization. Again, Eastern Mountain Sports has developed a creative and powerful way of

using RSS feeds: “We've successfully tied that data to an RSS feed so managers don't have to

visit a Web page to view the latest numbers-the information now pops up on their desktops

automatically” explains company CIO Jeffrey Neville. (Neville, 2007)

For those who prefer to receive updates through email, Dr. Andrew McAfee discusses the

possibility of RSS feeds being filtered and delivered to an employee’s email based upon his or

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her preferences. Finally, organizations can mix two powerful technologies, blogs and RSS feeds

to inform knowledge workers of newly published blogs on an intranet company portal to attract

more readers and encourage more feedback about various topics.

Social Networking Without a doubt, one of the most exciting and popular innovations to spawn from Web

2.0 on the net has been social networking sites. The allure and excitement that such sites offer

millions of people both young and old is quite astonishing. Social networking sites like Facebook

and Myspace allow people to feel they are apart of a community on the web in which they can

interact with friends and strangers, share the joys and woes of their life, play games, and create a

public profile page that expresses their unique personality. Yet while Facebook and Myspace are

often considered geared toward young people preferably used outside of their day jobs, more

reputable and business oriented social networking sites are coming into the picture like Linkedin.

Social networking in general is valuable both as a way to enhance one’s career and simply to

fulfill basic human needs. Sites like Linkedin which can offer both are very attractive to users.

As Charline Li, VP and Principle Analyst of Forrester Research explores, “What’s the business

value of staying on top of your network? As we know from experience, priceless.”

Companies such as IBM have already started experimenting with social networking by

creating communities and company profiles on existing social networking sites as well as

creating their own internal sites for the purpose of better connecting their employees. IBM has

spent the past few years developing an internal networking site called Fringe, which started off

as a basic web employee directory and has been added with many exciting features including

profiles, links to resumes, skills, patents contributed, tagging, testimonials, user groups,

“friending,” and geographic tags. It was also redesigned in 2005 to offer more flexibility and

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features by basing it off of AJAX. (Newbold, Azua, 2007) Many lose their small and friendly culture

that was enjoyed when the organization was small or medium sized.

Enterprise 2.0 tools like Fringe will offer large multinational companies like IBM and

others a way to create community across great distances within their organization. Company and

industry conferences demonstrate the power of social networking in sharing knowledge and

generating ideas about latest industry trends and best practices. Social networking tools can offer

the same benefits to organizations, but on a day to day basis. Early adopters of this technology

will find their level of knowledge sharing increased and their sense of teamwork on the rise.

Folksonomy Folksonomy is a technology that is summarized by: the wisdom of crowds. It is derived

from the words folks and taxonomy, which in Greek means the law of arrangement. (Cain, 2008)

Folksonomy is usually characterized by end users of a website tagging or adding keywords to

content. Some of the first applications of folksonomy were for photos and internet bookmarks.

So, for example, a user looking at a particular photograph of an intense orange sunset might

describe the photo as “angry” or “vivid.” When another user searches the keyword “vivid,” they

may be shown that photograph. This is an extremely helpful and potent form of natural

categorization in contrast from traditional classification of objects which are usually decided by

experts or authority. “When statistically aggregated and expressed, "folk" knowledge will not

only be more accurate than the findings of experts alone, but knowledge thus formed can change

with changing times” writes Bill Orr of the ABA Banking Journal. (Orr, 2008)

Andrew McAfee suggests that a folksonomy bookmarking tool in an organization could

make company intranets more effective for employees. Employees could utilize the tool to assign

tags to articles they found helpful and relevant to their work, allowing the system to better

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categorize that article for others to find more easily when they searched similar tags.

Additionally, a internal folksonomy tool could be used to generate a list of the most frequently

visited articles on the intranet for any specific category, giving power to the users to select what

they feel is the most important information. Tools like this will raise employees’ satisfaction

with their corporate intranets.

Media Management Youtube is a site that has rolled many elements of Web 2.0 into one such as folksonomy

(tagging), user feedback (comments), rating systems, and community. It is another great example

of giving power to users to decide what they like and do not like. Companies can utilize similar

Web 2.0 tools to not only manage the media content they currently store, but enable employees

to naturally identify the most helpful and important media. Additionally, allowing employees to

upload their own media aids in greater knowledge generation across the organization. Videos of

pertinent speeches given at industry conferences, images of flowcharts and diagrams, and

PowerPoint presentations which aid employees in their work are examples of media that Web 2.0

technology can manage and permit people to rate and rank. Educational institutions are already

starting to reap the benefits of user generated video repositories. (Agnew, Laskaris, McMickle,

2008)

Conclusion Critics to Enterprise 2.0 argue that employees will not and should not receive such power

from their employers. (Davenport, 2007) While this may be true in many ways, we can look at

Web 2.0 enabled technology as utilizing the wisdom of employees as a whole to make decisions

as to what is important for the organization as a whole to focus on. Companies which listen to

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the opinions and experiences of their front line workers fair a better chance at staying up to date

with industry trends than companies who ignore the voices of their employees.

Dr. Bruce Dearstyne puts it beautifully in the Information Management Journal, “The

100-percent guaranteed easiest way to do Enterprise 2.0? DO NOTHING... your bright,

thoughtful, and energetic staff will do it for you. Trouble is, they will do it outside your firewall

on bulletin boards, instant message exchanges, personal blogs... and you will have lost the ability

to understand it, influence it, and integrate it into how you do business.” (Dearstyne, 2007)

Knowledge sharing is a driver for innovation, improvement of operations, and ultimately,

success. Businesses will soon need to adopt the technologies that make knowledge sharing most

effective in order to stay competitive.

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