In search of a competitive edge

Corporates appear to be sold on the idea of Web 2.0. More than three-quarters of executives who responded to a McKinsey survey say they plan to maintain or increase their investments in technology trends that encourage user collaboration, such as peer-to-peer networking, social networks, and web services.
More than half say they are pleased with their past internet investments, though some regret not boosting their own capabilities to exploit technology. So there are still people out there who ask their secretaries to print out their emails. Surely not.
Anyway it will be interesting to see how the results of the McKinsey survey contrast with research due out later in the year by TFPL and the Edinburgh-based Napier University School of Computing.
TFPL's Melanie Goody says that the idea of the research is to look at the risk and opportunities of social networking tool in the business market. At the moment most of what we think we know about the impact of social computing comes from anecdotal evidence, although last year the British Computer Society (BCS) estimated that £130m a day is being lost due to employee engagement with social networking sites.
The TFPL/Napier research (results in the autumn) is designed to look at the use of social tools such as Facebook, blogs and microblogs, plus more formal collaborative platforms such as Sharepoint (in which TFPL has a particular interest).
Out of the research it may be possible to start to formulate policies on acceptable use, workplace bullying and damage to corporate brand. Of particular interest to information professionals are subjects such as corporate confidentiality and the archiving of valuable employee exchanges which has to date received little attention.
Enterprises still have a lot to learn about web 2.0 and its role in the work environment. While there may be opportunities there has been a lot of focus on the downside risks. The McKinsey survey talks about the possibility of these technologies providing a sustained competitive edge. If that is the case then businesses will definitely be interested.