The Ponderings of Woodrow

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder: Why Scoble is right AND wrong about enterprise software

Robert Scoble, made quasi-famous for blogging early and often while an employee at Microsoft, now rarely revisits topics that revolve around enterprise computing. But this weekend, in reaction to comments recently made by Bill Gates, Scoble opines about why enterprise software isn't sexy or more specifically why it doesn't garner the attention that consumer-centric software does.

He comes to the following conclusions:

1. Bill Gates is right, bloggers and journalists DO prefer to talk about consumer technologies
2. The buyers of enterprise software are a minority that doesn't consult with the majority of the users before making decisions
3. Media are paid to deliver eyeballs; and talking about consumer topics generates a lot more of them

He concludes his missive with a question:

Any of you have any ideas on how to make business software sexy?

Finally, he asks for we Enterprise Irregulars to weigh in on the topic:

I wonder what the Enterprise Irregulars think about this? (They are a group of bloggers who cover business software).

Scoble asked what we Irregulars thought, and boy did he get some answers:

• Michael Krigsman, one of the newest Irregulars, offers a passioned response and suggests that Scoble is asking the wrong question
• Dennis Howlett reminds Scoble that sexy is far, far different from influential
• Vinnie Mirchandani is "damn proud to be unsexy"
• Anshu Sharma offers five types of software that turn CIOs on
• Sadagopan also emphasizes that that blog traffic in no way equates to influence in the real sense
• Dan Farber explains that enterprise topics are worth blogging about, quality of readership trumps quantity
• Ross Mayfield thinks enterprise software developers can/must and will do better
• Craig Cmehil reminds us that those consumer technologies everyone gushes about are provided to us by enterprises
• Phil Wainewright reminds us that software is boring, and always will be, for most of the population

I am really proud of the diversity and thoughtfulness that many of my fellow Irregulars brought to bear on this topic over the last 48 hours.

At the end of the day, beauty really is in the eye of the beholder.

<=== I'm no George Clooney, but my wife finds me sexy (I hope!). Heck, even Bea Arthur managed to get married...TWICE!

The consumerization of software is underway; but it's absolutely a SLOW GOING process within large enterprises. I think it's vitally important to keep perspective.

Good software, whether it's sold for millions of dollars to a Fortune 500 CIO or distributed freely to millions of users directly and paid for by advertising, is only as good as the processes it enables.

It can't be said enough...it's not about the code, it's about the PROCESS!

Make users lives easier. Sounds simple, but it's really not.

software sexy scoble enterprise enterprise irregulars woodrow

Preparing for a downturn in software spending...

As many of you know, my partner and I recently moved offices and are now sharing space with Insight Venture Partners. Insight is one of the largest and most well-established venture capital firms in New York and the team has always maintained a keen eye on the world of enterprise software.

I've just recently had the chance to meet Peter Sobiloff, who coincidentally this week penned a timely post  at Sandhill.com on what software companies must do to survive an economic downturn.

Ready for a Downturn? by Peter Sobiloff
Software companies with a plan for bad times will not just survive a downturn– they will emerge stronger than before.

I encourage everyone to read Peter's post in its entirety as I think he hits on many of the issues facing software companies of all sizes in the coming year or two. With that said, I'd like to highlight a few of his points specifically and react to them from the perspective of a public-equity investor in the space.

Point 1: A Downturn is Likely

Peter cites a confluence of factors for his cautious outlook:

• Weakening credit conditions
• Consumer confidence
• Rising gas prices
• Housing market woes
• Weakening dollar
• The upcoming Presidential election

I wholeheartedly agree with all of Peter's points, but would add two more to the equation:

• Employment trends -- The third leg of the U.S. consumer fallout relates to employment. Thus far, employment trends have been surprisingly resilient, but this week's rumor of massive layoffs at Citigroup is, in my view, a harbinger of things to come.
• Beijing Olympics -- I'm a believer in the BRICS phenomenon as a long-term secular growth driver; but given the valuations being afforded the Chinese equity market (and other emerging markets); it would be foolish to think that the MARGINAL rate of economic growth isn't vitally important for global IT spending trends. With the Beijing Olympics coming next year, there is a very real catalyst for China to slow down its torrid growth (with little thought of inflation) in the second half of next year.

Point 2: This Downturn will be Different from the 2001 Bubble

...It is impossible to talk about a downturn without comparing it to the dotcom crash of 2001 and the subsequent recession. But if a downturn comes next year, the drop will be different and not nearly as steep. Here’s why.

The dotcom boom was characterized by immature and unproven business models which exposed tech companies across the board. A startup that wasn’t making money would buy Cisco equipment and Viant’s consulting services. That cycle of economic activity based on immature models was bound to fail.

Today’s software companies are much more mature. All tech companies have learned a lot of lessons which set them on much more sound footing than during the dotcom era and will help them during a future downturn...

There is no question that the technology markets (and the U.S. equity markets on the whole) are far better positioned than we were in 2000; when "irrational exuberance" was a stark reality. Software valuations are in-line with historical levels. That is to say, publicly-traded software companies are neither particularly expensive nor cheap based on historical comparison (both relative to the market indices as well as measured against absolute earnings, cash flow and revenue growth multiples).

That said, I do worry a bit about Peter's second analogy; i.e., the issue of immature bubble companies spending money on Cisco hardware and Viant services. Although we don't have that to worry about this time, we do have a tremendous amount of spending coming from the emerging economies. All of those companies in China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Russia, etc...have been building with extremely cheap access to capital. That certainly argues for a lot of froth (and poorly managed enterprises) that could very quickly close off their spending spigots. That's a risk that is also impossible to quantify, because we have very little reliable data on the true econometrics driving many of those countries.

Point 3: Downturns can be an Opportunity

...Economic cycles – both up and down – are always an opportunity. Like anything else, the more prepared a company is, the better it will ride out either cycle.

Executives must communicate with management about a potential downturn, have a specific action plan, have “buy in” for the plan at all levels, and build the business in a “componentized” way that enables progress during tough times. Savvy companies can use an economic trough to execute strategic M&A deals and gain ground against their competitors.

The software companies that operate strategically during a downturn will emerge as stronger businesses for the long term.

Peter is spot on here. The software industry has matured considerably since the late 90s. Growth rates, in aggregate, have slowed but that's as much a function of the industry gaining scale and importance (it now figures in at about 25% of IT spending). Well-run software businesses are attractive in good and bad times. With unbelievably high gross margins; software companies that are pragmatic can effectively control their spending and protect margins in downturns (i.e.,slow down hiring, pare back poor-performing sales reps, consolidate G&A through M&A and outsourcing). In addition, while license revenues can fluctuate considerably, maintenance revenues remain predictable and sticky. Subscription revenues (an emerging line item as SaaS gains popularity) are, as well. Many software companies are sitting on boatloads of cash.

Software companies with a plan in place; and a pragmatic, forward-thinking executive team will come out of this downturn better off.

sandhill sobiloff insight insightventures vc software best practices downturn investing woodrow enterprise irregulars 

CIO influence waning?

Friend and fellow Irregular Sadagopan recently penned a thought-provoking article at Sandhill.com discussing the changing role of the CIO:

Meet the New CIO

...Historically speaking, the CIO role was created to signify an increasing sense of awareness that information had to be managed similar to other important resources such as people, finance and materials. This required managers to plan, budget, evaluate and use information efficiently and effectively.

This new function of managing centered around information called for a different breed of manager – one capable of understanding the management of information and IT in the context of the business’s priorities and challenges. Today, across industries, leading-edge enterprises are completely dependent on IT as their internal engine. When the business model needs to be adapted, changed or shifted to changing economic or market circumstances, it turns to the IT engine to make it happen.

Paradoxically, in this information age, corporate data is increasingly becoming a company asset. While data and information may not manifest on the balance sheet, these are critical business enablers and differentiators not unlike Google's brand or 3M's innovation culture. Gartner recently did a survey with Forbes magazine that found fewer than 50% of CEOs surveyed hold the CIO responsible for the strategic exploitation of information today, but expected that that the CIO would wrest back this responsibility in the coming years...

I encourage you to read the article in its entirety. Sadagopan is an executive with Satyam (recently re-located to the U.S.) and works directly with CIOs of some of the world's largest companies. He goes on to discuss the challenges traditional CIOs face in establishing themselves as strategic decision-makers within the enterprise.

Coincidentally, InformationWeek recently published its own analysis of the changing role of the CIO. It noted that the Society for Information Management recently found that just 31% of CIOs report directly to the CEO. M.S. Krishman, who chairs the BIT program at the University of Michigan said:

"It's IT that runs every business process today," Krishnan says. "And while the IT department takes the responsibility for running those processes--the applications are doing fine, transactions are going great--they don't take ownership."

But somebody will take ownership, he predicts, and soon. "As companies become global, this will become a critical position," Krishnan says. The overseer might be called one of several things: chief operating officer, chief process officer--or chief information officer. But if the CIO doesn't step up, he predicts, "the CIO will be subsumed."

His comments take me full circle. One of the first conversations I ever had with Niel Robertson revolved around the need for Chief Process Officers to emerge. At the time, I was skeptical about adding another layer of CxO complexity in an IT constrained environment. But he countered that the strategic demands of IT would make this an inevitability. I'm still not sure a CPO is the answer, but I do think that the evidence is mounting against CIOs who don't have line of business experience and understanding.

What do you think?

sadagopan cio sandhill.com informationweek woodrow enterprise irregulars

Is there a youth vacuum in enterprise software?

M.R. Rangaswami, one of my favorite minds in enterprise software, has penned a guest column on Om's blog (another fave) where he reflects on the aging of enterprise software's leaders:

Enterprise Software's Youth Drain

One need only look at the hairlines of today’s software leaders. The current wunderkinds are not looking to create the next wave of corporate computing applications, but are instead gravitating toward emerging fields, such as web 2.0, biotech, and anything “green.”

Bill Gates was 19 when he founded Microsoft (MSFT). Steve Jobs started Apple (AAPL) at 21. Even Marc Benioff was in his 30s when he founded Salesforce.com (CRM) — and at 42, he remains one of the industry’s youngsters.

Software companies need to do more to attract the next generation of business leaders who will drive the evolution of the industry for decades to come...[continued]

M.R. goes onto talk about how he looked around his famed Enterprise 2007 conference and saw the average age of the crowd (50 years old) and then expounds on his recommendations for how enterprise software can re-ignite the youth movement.

I couldn't make this year's Enterprise conference; but at 32 years young I guess I would've probably dropped the average age to 49; would that have mattered? :)

In all seriousness, I think M.R.'s recommendations for attracting young talent are generally well thought out, but I'm not sure I see the aging issue as a real problem. One, we have to remember that the INDUSTRY is maturing. When Bill Gates was founding Microsoft (as M.R. mentions in his column), the concept of "enterprise software" was still very much nascent. Today a big chunk of IT spending is on software; the industry has grown up. It's that very maturity which is driving the wave of consolidation we all have talked about so much lately.

On top of the clear industry trends; it seems hasty to dismiss the very potent youth movement. Take a look at the software companies that have gotten major funding of late. Or those startups that have garnered exits. The Keiden guys (bought by Salesforce) are barely old enough to drink. The biggest VC exit of the last 12 months, YouTube, has extremely young and fresh faced founders. Sure, YouTube isn't an "enterprise software" play per se, but I think that speaks to the broader issue of where the innovation opportunities really lie.

Give it a year or two. With VMWare trading at ungodly valuations and just about every investor dying for "other ways to play virtualization" (a friend and fellow fund manager's words, not mine), you can be sure we'll see more young people venturing into that arena. We're also going to continue to see younger engineers make pushes into SaaS-y models.

Maybe I'm getting old, but I'm much less concerned about the AGE of people in the industry as I am the underlying factors which drive and encourage INNOVATION. To that end, one could argue the industry is better off than it's been in some time. With the stock markets (domestic and abroad) doing well, the IPO market back open, and plenty of global liquidity; plenty of people are feeling the itch to try something more entrepreneurial. And that's what really matters...not whether they're old enough to drink legally.

Note: This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security, but is merely a personal analysis to foster discussion for informational purposes only.

mrrangaswami ommalik gigaom sandhill.com talent investing software woodrow enterprise irregulars

The myth of "pull" economics vis-a-vis SaaS?

Charles Zedlewski is one of a handful of bloggers I selfishly wished blogged more often (before the jokes start, yes I realize I firmly deserving of that label too, of late). Every time he puts fingers to keyboard, I know I'm in for thought-provoking analysis.

With the recent rash of SaaS filings, Charles decided to look at the costs associated with the SaaS model and whether or not the "pull" aspect was in fact playing itself out.

What struck me with all three companies was the losses. The first order explanation is quite simple: all the companies spend a ton of money on sales & marketing (between 65% and 100% of revenues). Most of these businesses are the farthest thing from the oft discussed but seldom witnessed “pull model” that’s supposed to lead to superior profits.

The root cause for the losses is a little more subtle. In a recent article, McKinsey consultants asserted that the primary cause is scale. In fact they go so far as to say that these scale economies are nearly identical to those of on-premise software companies.

It's hard to argue with Charles' conclusion, which is that, at least to date, SaaS vendors have foregone margin as a trade-off for growth.

I also wholeheartedly agree with him that it's a question of scale and, Salesforce.com is approaching a point where they will need to make good on the promise of margin delivery. As long as the incremental spend translated one-for-one to the top line, one could make a logical case to continue, but now that the marginal utility of each additional SG&A dollar is driving less than a dollar in revenues, show me the profits.

Note: This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any publicly-traded security nor is it a recommendation to participate (or not to participate) in upcoming IPO offerings of Constant Contact, SuccessFactors, NetSuite or any other company. This discussion is merely a personal analysis to foster discussion for informational purposes only. At the time of this writing, I and/or funds I maintain discretionary control over, maintained a long equity position in CRM and, through a passive investment in a venture capital firm, have exposure to SuccessFactors (privately held). We may, or may not, have interest in participating in the IPOs of these companies or other securities listings. At times, we may maintain derivative options as a hedge on underlying positions.

charlez charles zedlewski IPO investing saas economics salesforce.com constant contact successfactors netsuite software woodrow enterprise irregulars

Two bloggers that deserve your attention...

I have upwards of 400 blogs in my RSS reader, and try to turnover my feeds with a fair amount of frequency. There are, of course, a core group of mainstays and it's always a very gratifying experience when I come across a new blogger that is such a find, I feel compelled to spread the word.

Today, I have not one but two bloggers to call attention to:

• Marc Andreessen -- Chances are if you're reading The Ponderings of Woodrow, you are already reading Marc's blog, too. You also don't need an introduction to Marc, who helped create a little something called the web browser and more recently co-founded Opsware (OPSW) and Ning. Andreessen is off to a world-class start with a series of deep, lengthy and thoughtful posts that run the gamut of topics. His Facebook Platform analysis first caught my attention, but I'm still waiting for him to write a post that could be classified as fluff. Another personal favorite, his analogy to big enterprise and Moby Dick.

• John Hagel -- Hat tip to Charlie Wood for this one, but John Hagel has been blogging for almost a year. He's not a frequent blogger, but he falls into the quality over quantity camp. Hagel recently accepted a position with Deloitte to establish a new research center in the Silicon Valley, examining the intersection of IT and business strategy. Hagel's most recent missive, Unanswered Questions at Supernova 2007, helps set the groundwork for the questions he'll be looking to answer in the coming days, months, and weeks.

Note: This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security, but is merely a personal analysis to foster discussion for informational purposes only. At the time of this writing, I and/or funds I maintain discretionary control over, did not maintain a position (long or short) in OPSW.

andreessen hagel blogging recommendations woodrow enterprise+irregulars

Facebook: Now that's a platform...

Facebook has been, by any measure, a runaway success story. Yet, because of its original nature [exclusively for college students], I never really peeled back the layers of the onion and figured it was something "not meant for me." But as most of you know, Facebook has opened its kimono to everyone and, in the process, has become far more accessible for old (class of '96) fogies like me.

Even so, it wasn't until the last two weeks that I've really begun to understand what Facebook represents. I've never been much of a MySpace guy, so I still had little reason to think Facebook would be beneficial for the way I network, communicate, and collaborate. That is, until I started getting invites from colleagues around the world asking me to become their Facebook friends. I would've chalked up one or two requests as random curiosity on the part of my friends, but dozens? That was worth creating a profile and checking it out.

Within minutes I could already see Facebook would be more useful to me than LinkedIn. You can add a layer of detail to your interpersonal relationships that LinkedIn has failed to embrace.

And then I read Marc Andreessen's blog post analyzing Facebook. Make no mistake, Andreessen has taken to blogging in a way few can rival. In fact, it almost pains me to read his blog now because in a matter of weeks he's mastered a form of expression I still toil at after 18 months actively blogging.

Marc does a fantastic job explaining what Facebook is, why it's far more important than many realize, and why it's only going to get more important.

[Marc's Blog] Analyzing the Facebook Platform three weeks in...

After spending some time building up my Facebook Profile and talking to colleagues about its power as a platform, my mind began racing about how Facebook (and other popular social networking sites like MySpace) is potentially disruptive in a way that many corporate focused "platforms" really aren't. I've spent a fair amount of time dissecting Salesforce.com's AppExchange, and SAP's SDN, and WebEx Connect; yet none of these hold the power that Facebook has, in my view. Despite feeling like I was onto something intuitively, I have been racking my brain to articulate why Facebook is more important than the aforementioned business platform plays.

Thanks to my good buddy Jeff, I no longer need to worry. Jeff hits the nail on the head as he posits the importance of Facebook and why it's different from other "platforms" we hear about so often in the world of enterprise software.

• [Jeff's Blog] Distribution is the new ecosystem play...

...Without question the large vendors look at Myspace and Facebook as mere toys and that reflects as much a misunderstanding of what these things are as it does the cultural disconnect that many enterprise software executives have with the broader market. They will say things like "our customers don’t use those services" without considering that while the CIO isn’t using them it’s an odds on favorite that a good number of people in the organization are.

It’s also worth pointing out that enterprise vendors consistently put themselves at the center of the universe like an aging movie star that doesn’t realize s/he is told old to play the role (think Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct 2). SAP/Oracle/Microsoft/IBM may be the gorillas in the global enterprise market but selling to 50,000 global customers out of a market of 100 million businesses (that’s a guess, I don’t know what the actual stat is) is hardly going to drive the growth each is predicting. This dovetails with something else I talk about frequently, selling to users instead of organizations.

The initiatives that each of the MISO vendors have spawned around widgets is a good start, but it’s not enough. Prosumer users really require the ability to create rich applications outside of the usual development platform, and to that degree SAP and Oracle in particular should be expanding their API support to include Facebook and Myspace integration...[cont.]

When we talk about things like "Enterprise 2.0", I think the myopic view that focuses on new tools [i.e., wikis, tools, RSS aggregators] completely misses the sea-change we're undertaking. We've all been asking ourselves when (and if?) business-centric analogs would emerge for the massively successful social networking platforms; without realizing that these sites may BE THEIR OWN BUSINESS ANALOGS.

What's going to be the Enterprisey version of Facebook? FACEBOOK.

enterprise2conf enterprise 2.0 platform facebook marcandreessen jeffnolan enterprise irregulars woodrow

EI Dinner...good food, good friends, good ideas

This evening, the Enterprise Irregulars descended on La Famiglia Giorgio restaurant in Boston for a get together. As with all EI get-togethers, I was sure it would be a worthwhile experience, but tonight proved to be particularly entertaining.

• While Andrew McAfee and I may agree on the importance of Enterprise 2.0, we vehemently disagree about the place Led Zeppelin holds in the rock 'n roll pantheon
• Luckily, Andrew came to his senses when it came to ranking the Beatles (best all time) and Ray Charles (more important than Elvis) among music greats
• Virtualization is a grossly underappreciated tectonic shift in the technology landscape. Calling VMWare the most important IPO in the last five years would hardly be a stretch
• The quest for platforms continues apace, with an ever-decreasing line between consumerized portals (e.g., Facebook, MySpace) and enterprise portals (e.g., AppExchange, WebEx)
• Facebook is a MUCH more important platform play than I realized
• Google is going about things in the right way, they are building a development community and charging nothing for it
• The situation with Yahoo! is a house divided, some believe Jerry will bring much needed change, while others wonder why he represents any major change at all
• We have some brilliantly talented entrepreneurs in the group, including Neil Robertson (Newmerix), Greg Reinacker (NewsGator) and Charlie Wood (Spanning Sync)
• Atlassian is an impressive company. Self-funded, cash flow positive, significant revenue base with a high growth rate. Yet, the founders are in no rush to monetize their company. They're more focused on pushing toward $100mm revenue mark and expanding levels of employee ownership. I had the chance to spend time with Jeff Walker (CEO) and Scott Farquar (co-founder) this week and they are top notch guys, both personally and professionally
• There are a ton of startups at the conference that fall into the "me too" category, but it only takes one or two of them to emerge to make the entire effort worth the while
• I may not be the best looking Wood in the Irregulars, but I'm damn sure the youngest :)
• There is a lot of fear that the U.S. equity market is due for a major correction, and some are wondering when we'll see an end to the M&A engine
• The Enterprise Irregulars is a powerful community, and we haven't begun to tap into its potential
• EI should be a sounding board for ideas big and small
• We underestimate our impact and presence within the enterprise technology ecosystem
• EI is powered by the confluence of disparate viewpoints; the value is in the differences, not where we agree
• We, as a group, need to do a better job of eating what we grow. There are a lot of collaborative tools to increase the effectiveness of our day-to-day communication, and we've done a poor job of leveraging them

I probably left out a lot of meaningful nuggets, but these will do for now. If you were at the dinner and think I missed something, say so in the comments. Otherwise, until next time...

enterprise2conf enterprise 2.0 IT conference enterprise irregulars woodrow

McAfee vs. Davenport: McAfee wins 12-rounder on points

As promised, the Enterprise 2.0 conference started off with a much ballyhooed debate between Tom Davenport and Andrew McAfee over the importance of Enterprise 2.0. Dan Farber moderated the discussion and, in his usual manner, asked poignant questions and knew when to get the conversation moving on in another direction.

Overall, there was more agreement than disagreement, which speaks to the courteous and professional nature of both participants. Unfortunately, I think the debate left a little something on the table as a result. There were times, in my humble opinion, when they both had VASTLY different viewpoints on a subject but refused to cut into one another's underlying premise. Again, not surprising, but as an observer I would've liked to see a little more passionate opinion than dispassionate logic.

Is it evolutionary or revolutionary?

Boiling down their disagreements to the core, it comes down to Davenport believing the large corporations have an embedded culture that changes slowly and over time. Enterprise 2.0 technologies, in and of themselves, aren't revolutionary enough progressions to alter the glacial nature of changing business processes. Meanwhile McAfee believes we're early in the process, but we've seen enough anecdotal evidence to suggest we're about to see a tipping point where social, freeform collaborative tools lead to the next way of productivity improvement.

Some Hits (& Misses)

• Why isn't SharePoint considered Enterprise 2.0? -- Davenport tried to point toward Microsoft SharePoint as evidence that blogs and wikis aren't game-changing technologies. Yet, where he missed the boat is assuming (incorrectly) that SharePoint isn't part of the Enterprise 2.0 revolution. Just because it's a Microsoft product hardly removes it from the equation.
• It's not about the technology, it's about the people -- In this vein, both agreed. The big difference is that Davenport seems to think people can't and won't change, that the inherent nature of today's worker encourages them to protect their silos of knowledge and allowing an open, non-hierarchal platform simply won't work. McAfee agrees that conventional business process is the biggest gating factor to E2.0 adoption, but sees this as an opportunity for "leaders" vs. "bureaucrats."
• We still need proof points -- Andrew freely admits that, to date, we have limited evidence of enterprise-wide adoption of E2.0 practices. Given the nascent state of the market, this is not surprising but neither does it help further the cause. Technology adoption is often a self-fulfilling prophecy, so we need those forward thinking organizations who are embracing E2.0 to open up their doors and be studied. With that, we'll help further the path of adoption.
• The components of SLATES aren't new, but the aggregation of them IS -- Tom took the time to break down each component of SLATES (Search, Linking, Authoring, Tagging, Extensions, Signals) and made the point that we've had variations on those components for decades in many cases. While that's true, he misses the entire point of E2.0. It's the COMBINATION of these components in an easy-to-deploy paradigm that opens the door to evolutionary business practices. This is a classic example of the total being greater than the sum of its parts.

You can watch the entire debate HERE, courtesy of Veodia. Andrew blogged about the experience, and believes the key point of disagreement relates to whether E2.0 is something new:

After one review of the video, it seems to me that our main point of disagreement concerned the extent to which the E2.0 toolkit really is something new, or whether it's just an incremental extension to the longstanding set of technologies for collaboration, interaction, and information sharing. Tom stressed repeatedly that companies have been deploying such tools for decades, and he kept explicitly and implicitly asking the important question:  what, if anything, is new now?

In my opening remarks and a few times subsequently, I tried to articulate my answer to this question: that digital platforms that initially impose little or no structure on interactions, but that contain mechanisms to let patterns and structure emerge over time, are actually quite new. I've written about this a few times before, and for me it's the key to understand what's going on currently, and why so many of us are hopeful that the new toolkit will take off within companies. The idea of using group-level technologies not to impose structure (roles, identities, hierarchy, workflow, data formats, taxonomies, etc.) but instead to try hard to get out of the way and let structure emerge is, I maintain, a pretty novel one. And, I further maintain, a pretty important one.

Dan Farber has a synopsis from his POV as the moderator, and sits squarely on Andrew's side of the "is it new?" debate:

Davenport countered that Enterprise 2.0 doesn’t offer much new and it’s not revolutionary. Tags, search, knowledge management, email and links have been around for years, and haven’t done much to democratize corporate cultures, he said.

That’s like saying the Internet is not new. Yes, it’s been around since 1969, but in the last decade the Internet has revolutionized communications globally. That’s new. Enterprise 2.0 doesn’t have to be completely new to have a significant impact on corporate culture, productivity and competitiveness. Imagine Facebook in a business context, mashing up people and information in ways that help companies run faster, smarter and more efficiently.

In the end, and as a user of Web 2.0/Enterprise 2.0 technologies and services, I have to side with McAfee’s sense, as opposed to empirical evidence, that Enterprise 2.0 will eventually become mainstream.

I credit Andrew with the win, but not by knock out. While ultimately I think Andrew's view on things is much closer to the reality, one can't dismiss the very early nature of E2.0. We're clearly in a hype cycle right now, it's just a question of whether the promise actually matches the hype. Sometimes it does (targeted ad placement, virtualization), sometimes it doesn't (B2B marketplaces, ESBs). What do you think? Is E2.0 a revolutionary paradigm shift or an evolutionary one?

enterprise2conf enterprise 2.0 IT conference enterprise irregulars woodrow

Enterprise 2.0 Conference Preview...

Tomorrow morning I'm heading off to Boston for the Enterprise 2.0 Conference, which promises to be a tour-de-force. The conference is laser-focused on exploring the way emerging technologies can, and are being used within an enterprise environment. As you know, this is an are of great interest and I'm excited to be a part of this year's event having been unable to fit last year's launch event into my schedule.

The conference schedule speaks for itself.

On a more personal note, there are a number of reasons I'm personally excited about the conference:

• Enterprise Irregulars to the left of me, Enterprise Irregulars to the right of me...This conference is going to be well represented by the Irregulars. Here's a list of those I'm expecting to participate in some capacity [apologies if I forgot anyone!]:

• Jason Corsello
• Mark Crofton
• Dan Farber
• Julia French
• Dion Hinchcliffe
• Jevon MacDonald
• Ross Mayfield
• Andrew McAfee
• Susan Scrupski
• Greg Reinacker
• Niel Robertson
• Charlie Wood
• Jason Wood

• McAfee vs. Davenport...Andrew McAfee coined the term Enterprise 2.0 and no one has been as committed to defining the concept. Meanwhile Tom Davenport has emerged as the Nick Carr of Enterprise 2.0, arguing that its impact is overstated. While you can guess which side of the ledger I sit, it's going to be fascinating to see these two debate the state of the market thanks to a sponsored event by BSG Alliance [where friend and Irregular Susan Scrupski works] and Veodia. Dan Farber will be moderating, to boot. Veodia is providing a live video feed of the debate HERE.

• It's an East Coast event!..The East Coast is grossly underrepresented when it comes to technology conferences and events. While I love the Valley, and understand the importance of the area in terms of driving new technology paradigms, there is a wealth of entrepreneurial energy, innovation and critical thinking outside of the area, too...yes, even on the East Coast. :) It will be nice to not have to change time zones for a change.

• Seeing innovation at work...The demo pavilion is a great place to step out of the echo chamber and see what's REALLY available today in terms of emerging technologies. Nothing is more exciting than having that "WOW" moment when you come upon a team who not only has developed a great technology, but can articulate why it's going to become a great business.

If you're planning on attending, don't hesitate to stop me in the halls and say hello if you're so inclined. My schedule is reasonably full, but if you catch me in a slow moment, it's always nice to put faces with names. Otherwise, count on reading about the goings on here and on many other blogs over the next few days. We're all going to be tagging our posts with the Enterprise2conf tag; which should make it easy to follow if you're using Technorati, Digg, or an aggregator of your choice.

enterprise2conf enterprise 2.0 IT conference enterprise irregulars woodrow