• April 6, 2006

Purpose of Interview

• To follow up an interview conducted earlier.
• Find out about the respondent's experience with using wiki technology in a corporate setting.

Interview Notes

• Respondent had installed open source MediaWiki software on an existing internal server. Installation was simple and straightforward, according to the system administrator. Out of pocket expenses were minimal.
  
• Installation was designed primarily for use by an internal group of engineers involved in application design, service, and support for a complex software product. Primary areas covered by the wiki are technical and deal with configuration and management of a complex software application.
• Respondent had hoped that more people would "take ownership" of different parts of the wiki and begin adding and updating. This is not exactly what happened:
• Only a small core group (3-4 people) became active in adding content although a larger number of people were inclined to add comments.
  
• A wider group (10-12) became regular users of the content as a reference tool including engineers "outside the firewall" who were able to access the wiki via VPN.
• Respondent became aware that the user ad become accustomed to using the wiki regularly when the servergroup was taken offline and complaints immediately came in.
• Respondent described how some users became regular users of certain parts of the wiki and began to attach their own comments to those sections. Interviewer commented how this resembled behavior of professional call center reps who build their own "libraries" of frequently accessed information. Respondent agreed this was an apt analogy.
• Respondent commented that this wiki was not really a "live web" application with an integrated underlying database. Automatic maintenance and updating of links and complex graphic or tabular objects is not supported. It is a text oriented product with its own formatting standards and, while this differs from various online tolls such as Writely may be appropriate in certain situations.
• We discussed the issue of editorial control. respondent noted that most people did not want to exercise editorial control or ownership, that they were more likely to add comments than add or modify major sections.
  
• Respondent says that the goal of generating a product that can be handed over to customers so they can support their own products has not yet been met. This wiki as it has evolved is rather being viewed -- and used -- as a technical  internal reference tool.
• Respondent described how one executive had proposed purchasing licenses for an expensive financial management application in order to gain access to a module that supported inventory management in a way that could help coordinate oversight of the company's compliance with U.S. Federal Government restrictions over the export of sensitive technologies. The executive was shown that the wiki with incorporation of a simple spreadsheet could be used to support similary inventory management controls at a much lower costs.
• Respondent does not like the wiki's page formatting and prefers more standard tools such as word processors and tools such as Writely and Writeboard.
  
• Respondent was asked if the company would support the remote storage of sensitive company data in a web accessible system such as a wiki. He said no but did feel that a small or mid-size company, say, with 200 staff members. might reasonably onsider relying on extrenally stored data that was web accessible given availability of appropriate security protocols (i.e. SSH, SSL HTTPS support, etc.)

• April 1, 2006

Description of Respondent

• Respondent is a supply chain manager of a large multinational electrical appliance manufacturer.

Interview Notes

• The company actively uses Lotus Notes based blogs in communicating internally. Blogging is not used in support of supply chain related communications.
• Respondent feels that the types of internal and international communications she regularly engages in with trading partners around the globe are less amenable to "web 2.0" applications than customer communications or the internal communications that current executives blog about.
• Respondent attributes this to the types of communications and decisions that are the main focus of a large international supply chain. That is, the frequent communications that surround supply chain (via phone, conference call, and email) are usually about decisions that have already been made. These communications are less deliberative and more execution-oriented than the types of development and design related communications that staff who are involved in marketing or in designing products.
  
• When questioned about the role of I.T., respondent reports that the company's I.T. department, while it is highly centralized in one country, does regularly communicate with users such as herself in the design and introduction of new services and applications.
• Respondent reports that this was not always the case, that as early as 4 years ago, operating departments were basically provided I.T. services on a "take it or leave it" basis.
  
• Given the current positive relationship between business units and I.T., respondent does not see I.T. "resistance" when it comes to supporting the introduction of "web 2.0" related services.
• Respondent sees wiki technology as potentially very valuable, primarily in terms of the ability for a "wiki" to provide a user with a large body of well organized information that relates to a given project or problem. Respondent's example is the various types of information that relate to how to pack a standard shipping container - "having all information related to a possible transaction organized and in one location."
• Respondent states that editorial control must still be maintained over wiki contents. Also mentioned was the need to standardize on language perhaps through "folksonomies" especially when many users might not have English as a first language.
• Asked to discuss generational and cultural differences respondent does feel that some older executives might be less inclined to accept collaborative technologies.
  
• She also pointed out that employees located in some Eastern European countries seemed more accepting of blogging and related technologies, possibly because historically there were restrictions on free public and uncensored communication.

Summary

• I have posted nine interviews.
• I have three more to write up.
• I'm working on a "formal progress report" document.
• I'm continuing to recruit respondents for the interviews.

12 Interviews So Far

I've posted nine interviews so far and have three more to write up. Folks have been very cooperative and knowledgeable. It turns out that the people I've interviewed who are not actively engaged in planning or managing "web 2.0 applications" have been very helpful in helping me understand the organizational dynamics that affect adoption of such new technologies.

A Formal Progress Report Is Under Development. Meanwhile...

My early decision to focus on "user facing" aspects of Web 2.0 such as customer-focused content management, distribution, and collaboration (e.g., via blogs, podcasts, and wikis) may have been  justified but has left a hole in the topics covered so far that I will try to address in the next round of interviews. (Please email me if you're interested in being interviewed.)

I'm now working on a formal report to discuss where the survey stands and what I intend to do next. Here are some random thoughts and observations I have as I work through the formal report:

1. The issue of "IT department resistance" is not as major a factor as I had supposed. While this may be at least partly due to the non-random nature of the "sample" of the people I'm interviewing, there are other factors (see below) that are at least as important in affecting the speed with which companies implement Web 2.0 based services.
   
2. Just because a company has figured out how to allocate responsibility for web service support between the IT department and individual business units doesn't necessarily mean that it can readily accept and integrate the more collaborative and decentralized model of customer communication that Web 2.0 can support.  But it's probably well positioned to figure this out.
   
3. Not all corporate cultures are ready to support the more decentralized and collaborative model of content management and collaboration represented by Web 2.0.
   
1. Highly bureaucratic or heavily regulated organizations may be slow to adopt the greater flexibility that Web 2.0 represents in these areas.
2. Certain types of business models may operate perfectly well without blogging, podcasts, or wikis.
4. There's a universal assumption that young people will expect and demand more collaborative and interactive features in the workplace because of their use of services such as Flickr and Facebook. We'll see. Based on personal observations of two college age children, another possibility is that many will "graduate" from using these services just as they graduate from other age specific activities.
   
5. Privacy, security, and network reliability are major issues being considered by companies thinking about investments in Web 2.0 technologies. Some IT departments might need to do a better job of communicating with business users that these concerns are justified.
   
6. There's still a lot of confusion over the definition of "Web 2.0" but things appear to be coming into focus. For example, remote hosting of "web office" applications is not the same as "web 2.0."
7. IT departments that are strategically focused and truly business oriented are in a much better position than those that aren't to help their companies figure out the best way to implement and operate Web 2.0 applications.
8. The more knowledge- and communication-oriented a company is, the more likely it is that the company can benefit from Web 2.0 based technologies. A corollary of this is that in such companies the distinctions between "intellectual property" and "communications about that intellectual property" may be disappearing.
   

As suggested above, I have, I believe, uncovered a variety of factors that will impact the speed with which "Web 2.0" types of applications are adopted and I am exploring those in the progress report. Here's the outline of topics I'm using on the formal progress report:

• Technology Governance
• Interdepartmental Communications
• Knowledge Management
• Impacts on Infrastructure
• Technical Architecture
• Intellectual Property
• Outsourcing
• Message Authority

Once I complete the formal report I'll publish it as a white paper and as a podcast.

I'm Still Recruiting!

I'm still recruiting respondents to be interviewed. Here's the text of a recent email I sent a colleague that explains what I'm seeking:

Dear X, I hope things are well with you and that there are signs of Spring in your neighborhood (here in Alexandria the crocuses bloomed through the snow that fell last week).

The reason for my email is this: as an independent consultant I am conducting a 'Web 2.0 Management Survey" to identify issues that are involved in companies implementing systems using blogging, podcasting, or wikis. I am looking for people I can interview about this, and I'm wondering if you can help.

The survey is described here:

http://www.ddmcd.com/survey/

Initially my focus was based on anecdotal evidence that business units (like Marketing and Customer Service) in some companies were bypassing I.T. departments because were perceived as "too busy" or "too bureaucratic."

Well, the truth is obviously a bit more complex than that but I need to conduct more interviews, which is why I'm contacting you.

Can you refer me to any individuals who are planning or managing a system that employs blogging, podcasts, or wikis? There is no shortage of consultants and evangelists to interview about this, but instead I'm eager to cut through the hype to document some of the realworld issues people are encountering with such effort. So far I've had some success with interviews such as the following:

• CEO of Business Process Management Software Firm
• Corporate IT Strategy Manager
• Financial Services Consultant
• Fortune 500 Division CIO
• IT Director in a National Specialty Retailer
• Software Development Manager
• Software Tester in a Pharmaceutical Robotics Company
• Sr. Application Engineer in a Telecom Services Company
• Web Manager in Corporate Communications

The writeups of these interviews are here:

http://www.ddmcd.com/findings/

If you can suggest any names of people I can ask for an interview, I'd appreciate it.

Best regards,

Dennis

 

• Feb. 15, 2006

Folloup Interview

• A followup interview with this respondent was conducted on April 6, 2006. Notes from that interview are located here.
  

Description of Respondent

• Respondent is a senior application engineer in the software licensing division of a 15+-year-old telecommunications services company.
• Previously the company provided services on a domestic service bureau basis only. They have now decided to license their system. This requires development of comprehensive documentation of their system and procedures so the system can be operated by licensees.
• Respondent is in charge of a project to develop such documentation collaboratively with support of wiki technology.

Interview Notes

• The current domestic service center supports four sophisticated product lines.
• Respondent: "Very few people understand more than their specific part of the job."
• Current documentation is very structured but is incomplete.
• Respondent's job role: he regularly serves as an intermediary between business and technical staff and also supports sales staff.  He is experienced in translating between business and engineering and frequently "creates content" to support a variety of corporate functions.
• There are currently no official  internal blogs or external blogs. Management is concerned about "information leakage."
  
• Respondent believes that multiple blogs would be required to provide information support for the existing product line and that, with multiple RSS feeds, it might be difficult to provide a unified view of the system and procedures required to support the current product line.
  
• Respondent is promoting use of a wiki as a "central knowledge collection point" by which potentially hundreds of individuals can contribute their knowledge about product systems and processes.
  
• Asked about the need for hierarchy and structure, respondent  points out problems with the company's current "traditionally structured" document repository that focuses on a strict file-oriented method for storage and retrieval of documentation. "There are too many choke points," he says, and he contrasts this with the decentralized and collaborative model supported by the wiki.
• Respondent admits that, behind the scenes, there still has to be a "system administrator," but he points out the various features of a wiki:
• Collaborative authorship spreads the load beyond a few overworked technical writers.
• Responsibility for documenting system expertise is pushed closer to those with direct knowledge and expertise.
• Wiki has built-in features that facilitate content management and tracking including history, version control, various external logs that can be selectively exposed to authors, users, or administrators -- and XML feeds that can support various publishing and access options.
• We discussed the issues of authority and responsibility. I asked if one of the reasons respondent was comfortable with not being overly structured in his approach to overseeing the organization of the content was because the jobs and responsibilities people will be documenting are already well defined and structured and that this existing structure would carry over to the wiki. "Not necessarily," he said, "We already have a learning organization." He explained that the organization already is receptive and adaptable to taking responsibility like this and that the wiki technology reflected this orientation.
• Respondent agreed there may be issues associated with collaborative/decentralized documentation in highly regulated or safety oriented knowledge repositories -- e.g., aircraft maintenance, pharmaceutical, etc.
• He summarized the advantages of the approach as follows:
• "lots of hands" will be involved.
• The system will support more frequent updating than the current structured documentation approach.
• The database structure underlying the wiki will support generation of multilingual versions of the documentation as required by non-English speaking license customers.

Interviewer comments

• Some of the functionality benefits mentioned by the respondent for using wiki technology to support collaborative documentation refer back to classic concepts of "database publishing" where a common repository of data drives multiple output streams. A major difference is that modern wiki technology is more advanced in how it takes advantage of sophisticated underlying data structures as well as the interactivity and availability of web based systems and standards.
  
• We did not address the social relationship aspect of the current staffing beyond respondent's reference to the company being "... a learning organization." Respondent appears to say that current employees and work groups will decide on their own what needs to be included. Given their current intimate relationship with providing customer support, this makes a great deal of sense -- as long as employees are provided  (and are compensated for) the time to do what is needed.
• We did not address the cost issue at all and whether this system would supplement or replace existing documentation systems. Related ripple effects that bear analysis include impacts on training and support and on the processes by which engineers and customer service and support staff interact.
• Also not discussed was whether the wiki system was viewed as another way to assist the transition of the company into future years when trends in "baby boomer" retirements might impact overall company access to critical knowledge and expertise. This was discussed in a recent podcast by CIO Magazine titled "Beating the Boomer Brain Drain Blues." Social networks established to match up younger and older engineers in other industries are one way to facilitate business transitions impacted by key staff retirements. This "succession management" function could be an important by product of use of collaborative knowledge management technologies such as wikis.
  

• February 13, 2006

Person Interviewed

• Respondent is a software automation specialist in performance and load tests for a manufacturer of pharmaceutical robotics systems.
• Respondent manages an in-house network of multiple servers and client systems that are designed to emulate customer installations.
• Respondent also participate in the customer service follow ups and and in managing the "bug tracking" associated with field testing and field service.
• In addition to his "day job" as a tester, respondent is a Microsoft MVP and consults occasionally. In that capacity he is also an active blogger and is personally familiar with blogging and "Web 2.0" concepts.

Interview Notes

• Respondent has tried unsuccessfully in the past to interest his employer in blogging and other related technologies. We spent the bulk of the interview discussing the special situations of this manufacturer and the potential areas for Web 2.0 applications.
  
• While the company's products incorporate an embedded Windows XP operating system, they are closed, hard-coded systems that do not provide standard computer functionality and would not be able to serve as hosts or clients for typical network based applications such as web browsing.
• The amount of documentation provided with the company's robotic products is minimal; this is by design as company's products are designed to be used on a regular basis by non-technical in-store staff after formal training.
  
• "Developing a relationship" between the company and its customers appears to be outside the relationship envisioned by the company with its customers.
  
• Respondent uses a standard bug tracking product for managing testing and bug tracking progress; it does not incorporate email threads or collaborative content management. respondent does not see testing, product testing, and bug tracking as a vehicle for adding Web 2.0 functionality.

Interviewer cmments

• The  complexity and sophistication of the company's products appears to create a situation where building and maintaining an ongoing collaborative relationship betwen the company and its customers appears potentially beneficial. This may not be the case, however, given the company's preference for tightly controlled communications that de-emphasize documentation.
  

• February 9, 2006

 Person Interviewed

• Respondent is an IT Director at a national specialty retailer with 1,300+ local retail stores, nearly all states in the U.S.A. are represented.
  
• Retailer has a separate sister company that manages a variety of eCommerce sites. Other than store look-up functions on the eCommerce company's web site, the web business and the retail operations are operated as two separate business entities.
  

Interview Notes

• Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, podcasts, and wikis are "... not currently on the radar screen," according to respondent.
• The IT department supports the relationship between the local stores and the headquarters in two primary ways (1) via an email network and (2) via feeds of retail data supplied by in-store local area networks.
• The company does not currently operate a web-accessible intranet for communicating with stores or for communicating with customers. This is in the works, respondent says.
  
• Communications with stores basically follow the hierarchy of management; information tends to flow out from top management, through regional management, to local stores, via email and telephone.
• In-store local area networks are currently being upgraded -- a long process. The company has added a large number of stores in the past few years through acquisition and in the process has created an IT infrastructure with a wide range of in-store equipment.
• The IT department is upgrading and standardizing in-store systems onto a commercial vendor's  Linux/Java based retail software suite. Respondent says this upgrade process is a major upgrade and he questions whether this architecture is relevant to typical "Web 2.0" applications such as blogging and podcasting.
• Interviewer asked whether technologies such as podcasting might be relevant to informing store staff about company news. Communications like this, says respondent, are basically handled by local and regional staff who communicate with headquarters via telephone and email.
• Respondent does not see an immediate need for the type of "interactive" communications represented by blogging. Respondent says that the company's Marketing department might have a different attitude about such things.
• Respondent points out features of the company's culture, that it is privately owned and that it has never engaged in the type of interactive or collaborative communication represented by "Web 2.0." IT's main focus now is currently on the standardization of in-store software/hardware infrastructure and on security and effectiveness of communications with store staff and regional management.

The survey is being conducted via a series of personal and telephone interviews following a general outline of suggested questions. Respondents are being recruited from both business units and IT departments to represent a range of company and departmental types. Interview notes and preliminary comments are being posted on this web site as the survey proceeds. The RSS feed of survey postings is also available.

Introduction

If you are responsible for planning or managing how technologies such as blogs, podcasts, or wikis are being used by your company in support of customers and you want to participate in this survey, please contact Dr. Dennis D. McDonald by email at ddmcd@yahoo.com.

Please note that, unless you request otherwise, neither your name nor your organiztion's name will be reported here. 

Also, please consider the following questions as a general outline and feel free to describe your own particular situation. For example, if you use blogs, podcasts, or wikis for internal company communications, let's talk about that, too. 

Question 1:

Please describe:

(a) your position in the company and

(b) your role in relation to managing either the technologies or business processes that support your company's relationships with its customers.

Question 2:

Please provide a brief description of the departments or functions in your company that regularly communicate with your customers.  (By "communicate with customers" we mean providing or receiving information about any kind of business or informational transaction that is associated with your company's products or services.)

Question 3:

Considering all the departments or functions you mentioned in Question 2 that are related to customer communications, how are technology related services provided? (By "provided" we mean that a corporate entity is responsible for maintaining and operating the technology associated with the service.) Possible responses include:

(a) technology related services are provided by a single central IT department

(b) technology related services are provided by the individual departments other than IT (e.g., by the business units)

(c) technology related services are provided by a mix of (a) and (b)

Question 4:

Please describe briefly how your company manages:

(a) the technologies associated with your company's web site

(b) the information content of your web site (e.g., product information and pricing, company policy, corporate information, etc.)

Question 5:

Is your company currently making use of "web 2.0" technologies such as blogging, podcasting, or wikis in its customer relationship? If so, please describe:

(a) how the technology is being used

(b) how the technology is being supported and managed (e.g., is it being managed and supported by a central IT department or is it being managed and supported by the individual business unit?)

Question 6:

If your answer to 5 is "yes," does your company have a formal policy concerning how these technologies are to be used by employees in their customer communications? Can you provide me with a copy of that policy?

Question 7:

If your answer to 5 is "no," please explain your reasons.

When Jeremy Owyang and I drafted our white paper Business and I.T. Must Work Together to Manage New "Web 2.0" Tools, we were pleasantly surprised by the number, variety, and quality of feedback that we started to receive almost immediately. I began asking some of my contacts and friends in the business world to react to our paper and to provide additional insight into the management issues raised by Web 2.0 technologies.

That led to this exploratory survey, the purpose of which is to investigate the various factors that are impacting how companies are adopting "web 2.0" technologies. Some key questions are the following:

• How are Web 2.0 technologies being used?
• What are the barriers to adopting Web 2.0 technologies?
• What is the relationship between business units and IT departments in the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies?

Date of Interview

• February 2, 2006

Description of Respondent

• Respondent is Web Manager in the Communications Department of a large publicly held electric utility.
• Respondent co-manages the company's customer facing web site in cooperation with managers from the Customer Service department and the Information Technology (IT) department.
  

Interview Notes

• Respondent is one of three managers in charge of the company's customer facing web site. The other two represent Customer Service and the IT department.
• Respondent is now currently reviewing a variety of possible uses of blogging and other technologies based on presentations being made by outside technology vendors. One idea under consideration is to use blogging and podcasting in support of a "community forum" linked to the web site.
• Most of the interview focused on blogging as this is under consideration now. Respondent feels that, for a public utility such as his, there are several factors against using blogs as a component in customer relations, e.g.,
• Based on studies of web use and other customer communications with the company (e.g., with call center) customers are usually contacting the company with an explicit inquiry (e.g., to inquire about a bill, to pay a bill, to make a payment arrangement, etc.) and are not interested in developing a conversation or "relationship." According to the respondent, "We're not a 'fun site' to go to."
  
• From the company's perspective, any conversation with a customer where any numbers or facts are provided have to be carefully vetted, e.g., by the legal department. This is a heavily regulated environment and great care is taken to avoid misrepresentation of facts or figures.
• Respondent notes that there is a concern that in a blogging situation, given what company already knows about the concerns people have when they call into the call center, that a blogging based system might quickly become "swamped" with negative comments.
  
• Respondent says that one area being investigated is to possibly use blogging in support of small business customers, whose needs are more like household customers than large businesses. Large business customers, he says, are more likely to already employ an inhouse person to manage energy related systems and issues, and this negates some of the potential value of blogging or more interactivity with large customers with complex electrical and energy situations. Respondent says that the functionality that is potentially relevant to small businesses is more "extranet like" than specific to blogging.
  
• "Blogging needs to be free and conversational," the respondent said. He continued by stating that, via their existing web site, the company already posts daily updates to a variety of pages and sections - energy prices, for example, and company news. New content is being displayed regularly and a content management system supports this.
  
• Respondent says that utilities sometimes have to use complex engineering language to describe concepts such as advanced metering and this may impact suitability of conversational methods such as blogs.
• Regarding management of IT resources, respondent says that it is not unusual to go outside the company for vendor supplied solutions that tie into the web site, but that each time this is done (integration of another external system) the possibility arises of a "Pandora's box" of potential integration issues down the road.
  
• He also pointed out that integrating an external service - say, a blogging vendor -- requires branding and image management as well (e.g., logo management) not just technology management. So there are other potential concerns besides IT system integration and standards to consider.
• Respondent noted that pressure is coming from Marketing for IT to generate a unified view of customers, but that each time a new system that touches customers is added, it becomes harder to generate this unified view.
  
• Interviewer noted that this reminded him of past conversations about the desire to generate a unified view of customers to support call center staff so that at the time of a call a complete history of customer relations would be available. Respondent agreed with the analogy.
  
• Respondent says, "IT department will do whatever you ask them to do."  The problem is that developing a comprehensive and unified view of customers in situations where multiple interfacing systems and databases have evolved over the years can by itself be a multi-year task - and people get impatient.
• Respondent questions how useful blogging would be in case of a crisis or disaster situation. Company already has well developed procedures in place, tested each quarter, in which staff practice disaster response. Communications at such times become centralized in Corporate Communications department. Respondent questions whether providing a service such as an "interactive community bulletin board" service in crisis or disaster situations really should be the responsibility of an electric utility.
• Respondent doesn't see utility of blogging as useful in field service operations - says company is already investing heavily in wireless systems for field communications and reporting of text and image data.

Date of Interview

• January 31, 2006

Description of Respondent

• Respondent is CEO of a 30-person software development firm specializing in collaborative business process management software.
• Respondent actively evangelizes "Office 2.0"  concepts to show how remote hosting and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) concepts are applicable to a wide variety of firms and business processes.

Interview Notes

• Respondent feels that many IT departments are not in a position to supply the "innovation" necessary to support "web 2.0" applications that emphasize collaborative content management functionality as well as modern architectural features. "They're already spending 80% of their annual budgets on maintaining existing systems. You can't expect them to lead the charge for new systems. Many of them are very much in a maintenance mode. The business units they support know it."
• Respondent: "We're very much like where we were in the mid-90's when Marketing Departments started putting their own web sites up, outside IT's control. IT knows this is shortsighted but that's what's happening."
• Interviewer:  "This reminds me of situations I'd seen where specialized applications -- not just in Marketing -- had been set up by individual business units. Support responsibilities (and costs) eventually came back to IT, which finds itself with a mix of incompatible technologies and standards  -- things that weren't considered when individual business units were "innovating."
• Respondent: "Many of today's innovations are all about sharing -- sharing data, sharing content, sharing ownership. From a data management standpoint this means that applications need to support robust security and data management functionality. Some of the evolving externally-hosted "web 2.0" systems coming on the market are still evolving these capabilities."
• Interviewer: "When you think about heavy duty mainframe based relational databases, industrial strength security, backup, record locking, and restore capabilities are already developed and people take these for granted. It's risky to spread corporate data across multiple locations with the newer systems if you don't have these capabilities."
• Respondent: "Correct. Relational architecture is over 30 years old. We understand the math. This is a major reason why I see SOA and remote hosting as an important player in Web 2.0 and Office 2.0 applications."
  
• Respondent: "You'd rather have someone else make the investment in creating "industrial strength" remotely hosted applications. It's crazy to try to craete your own if you can get the application service from a remote server."
• Respondent: "We're coming back to a model where we have centrally managed information. This seems inevitable as people demand more and more sharing through more blogging, collaborative document craetion, and wikis. 2006 will be the year when early adopters really push these issues into the open."
• Respondent: "When we have cascading of data through wikis, blogs, and increased RSS syndication, we'll find it more difficult to manage and control. This is another reason to take advantage of the efforts of larger more sophisticated development companies."
• Interviewer: "This sounds like the situation with enterprise DRM where we have vendors seliing services to companies intent on managing corporate content that will be more and more dependent on collaborative development. It sounds like it makes more sense to enterprise DRM solutions to be supplied as part of vendor offerings rather than directly to end user companies."
• Respondent: " A case in point -- use of certificates for securing email. I've tried this myself and have had little success. Only a tiny percentage of emails I get have certificates. This suggests to me that the system itself -- GMail, Yahoo! Mail, etc. -- have security built in, rather than have me as a user implement this on an add-on bases."
• Interviewer: "So given all this, what role do you think the IT department should be playing with support for services like blogging?"
• Respondent: "That's complex, especially for public companies. The corporate IT department needs to spend time with the CFO, the Legal department, and the CEO in creating a corporate policy that emphasizes how to implement blogging both internally and externally.  This is a real governance question that demands leadership. The IT department needs to provide leadership on standards and on ways to make the technology easy to use in support of what business people need to do."

 
One of the things that attracted me to doing the Web 2.0 Management Survey was hearing comments from business people that they would not consider approaching their IT departments for "web 2.0" technical support since (a) the IT departments were "too busy" and/or (b) the IT departments were too involved with "old technology."

Relevant to this, ZDNet News published an interesting article called Can IT Workers Shake the "Geek" Image? on January 30, 2006 under the byline of Andy McCue of Silicon.com. The very brief article brings together some comments by a group of IT managers and CIO's that I think might be at least partially relevant to this current research.

Most of the comments seem to address that old warhorse topic "why isn't IT taken seriously as part of the organization's management structure?" In my opinion, this dances around the topic of why someone interested in using a technology based service wouldn't go to the company group that is supposed to provide support for technology based services?

My personal experience tends to parallel the comment made by Yawar Murad, CIO at GE Life Insurance:

"The barriers are mental--CIOs and IT directors must understand the business drivers and where the industry is heading and make sure they are included in the business conversations in addition to managing the bits and bytes." 

In other words, the IT group needs to take a leadership position not only in understanding the technology but in understanding the business. The CIO's I've worked with who "get" this fact and who have the trust of the businesses they serve are successful. Those that don't, aren't.

The generation of trust in IT by Business is NOT a "top down" process. Yes, management can "order" that Business and IT work together. In certain circumstances this can be successful. Being given authority and responsibility, however, is not by itself sufficient. This lack of sufficiency is especially true of web 2.0 technologies that tend to be more collaborative, content oriented, and easier-to-ramp-up than more "traditional" technologies and architectures.

A developing hypothesis of mine, generated while doing these interviews and during discussions with other consultants, is that the social networking aspects of web 2.0 technologies must themselves be considered as part of the new technology adoption process.

The networking aspect of new web 2.0 technologies is one of the major differentiators of Web 2.0 applications from monolithic, hierarchically structured technologies of 30 years ago that drove the development and maintenance of armies of technologists. These technologists now spend major chunks of their time in the care and feeding of such systems, not in building or adding new ones. (Just ask a CIO of a large company to tell you how much is being spent on ongoing maintenance and support as opposed to development.)

Newer technologies, on the other hand, support the collaborative creation and sharing of information as well as the creation and maintenance of the person to person relationships that are associated with this information. That's a powerful combination. Even if IT departments are given authority and responsibility for planning and managing Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, wikis, and podcasts, they still need to immerse themselves in how to understand, plan and manage -- to the extent that's possible -- the very relationships these technologies enable.

Date of Interview

• January 26, 2006

Description of Respondent

• Respondent is Chief Information Officer of a growing division of a large, Fortune 500 consumer and industrial products company with annual revenues of $3+ billion. Total IT staff exceeds 300 across the enterprise.
• Company's public-facing web site provides an organized view of numerous individual subsidiaries, many of which have been added in recent years based on company's aggressive M&A strategy.
• Current web site is jointly managed by IT department with content responsibility managed primarily by the company’s corporate Marketing department.

Interview Notes

• Company does not currently manage any "web 2.0" applications (e.g., blogs, podcasts, or wikis) though respondent says there have been informal discussions about these.
• Respondent feels there should be a governance strategy concerning the management, architecture, and strategy governing such applications. Explicit standards and practices should be developed and followed for the adoption and operation of web 2.0 technologies; such a role for IT would be natural given its current role and responsibilities.
• Corporate strategy should also address branding, security, and information exchange among applications.
• According to respondent, one mechanism that helps ensure IT standards are adhered to is that controls are in place throughout the company for the authorization and tracking of IT related expenditures. While "shadow operations" (outside of IT) exist, these are few.
• Company has much experience with system integration and consolidation given its rapid expansion through acquisition of many smaller firms.
• Marketing and IT naturally collaborate. An example is maintenance of corporate web pages that provide an integrated view of the numerous businesses and product areas in which the company is active.
  
• Respondent feels that Marketing and Sales would be natural allies and leaders with IT in the development and implementation of "web 2.0" strategies; monthly meetings between IT and Marketing are held and this would be a normal place to bring this up -- this is a normal forum for the discussion of program management issues.
• Respondent says that there has not been a lot of discussion fo "crisis management" in event of product recalls or major product failure or liability issues. Such contingency planning, respondent says, should be handled pro-actively and is related to areas like disaster recovery planning and business recovery process planning.
  
• In general, respondent feels that at this company the differentiation of roles and responsibilities regarding information content and information technology are well defined and not the subject of significant uncertainty or friction.

Date of interview

• January 25, 2006

Description of Person Interviewed

• Respondent is a leader of a technical team at a small software development firm specializing in open source collaborative software.
  
• Company works with both small technology firms that want to improve customer communications as well as larger firms (e.g. media companies, financial services, real estate, etc.).
• Respondent is in early project stages working with a firm interested in "web 2.0" technologies that has a "traditional" AS/400 based infrastructure that will probably require use of external technologies to support changes to customer relationship systems and processes.
  

Interview notes

• Interview respondent is in early stages of a year long project to increase interactivity and collaborative functionality of the company's customer relations; this will include initiation of a corporate blog for the client.
• Focus now in project is on weekly meetings with representatives of Marketing, IT, Legal, and company executives to optimize processes and workflow that are impacted by the move to more interactive/collaborative technologies than have been used in the past by company's more "one way" customer communications.
  
• Client company has traditionally operated in hierarachical/bureacratic fashion to decide on messages to distribute to customers. The planned move to more interactive -- and faster -- communications with customers is forcing company to review and optimize many processes in order to speed up review and approval of information content.
• Software that is envisioned as supporting company's planned blogging activitie incorporates basic workflow management whereby proposed responses to customer inquiries are routed automatically for approval to appropriate party, including emailing of responsible party to inform him/her of message requiring action in that person's work queue. Respondent notes that this workflow/routing feature is a common feature of certain types of blogging software.
• No special modeling tools are currently being used to capture, decompose or model business processes. Respondent says regular meetings with project reps are being conducted using a whiteboard as basic tool for modeling and optimizing key business processes.
• Respondent says that formalizing involvement of different groups in reviewing and approving responses to customer inquiries in a timely fashion is one way to avoid falling into trap of what he has seen at other companies where corporate blogging has fallen into control of a few staff who have let blogging responsibilities slide or fall into inactivity. This has happened due to (a) failure to specify responsibilities as well as (b) reliance on a single department (e.g., marketing) to have sole management of process.
• Respondent is acting as an outside expert/consultant in overall project; I.T. department is involved but has neither the expertise nor current technical resources to implement the project. Marketing is also heavily involved due to customer communications aspect. Legal is involved due to potential corporate liability associated with expansion of customer communications.