The notion Web 2.0 has just celebrated its 4th anniversary. The last 3 years especially since 2005, the web has seen the rise of new business models based on viral network affects (one of the principles of Web 2.0); MySpace, YouTube, Orkut, Flickr, LinkedIn to name a few. The focus is slowly shifting towards Enterprise 2.0, which is the application of Web 2.0 technologies and principles to workforce within an enterprise or business.

Experts such as folks at O’Reilly and notable Harvard Professor Andrew McAfee continue to incubate the idea of Enterprise 2.0 and are providing several sensible recommendations and road maps for organizations to take their enterprise systems to the next generation. We all see exciting discussions about Web 2.0 on numerous blogs, and at water coolers in the IT sections of every organization.

Sounds great! But, what’s the problem? I think Web 2.0 in the context of applying within the enterprise will be one of the biggest challenges an enterprise ever embarked on! The problem lies within, and it’s the nature of how these enterprises have worked and facilitated work to its employees all along. To clarify, let’s look at some of the key concepts of Web 2.0 and discuss the impediments to implement them within the enterprise.

Web 2.0 is a set of principles and practices that are not limited to technology, but encompass business models, design principles, operating styles, product development philosophies, and innovation. Web 2.0 is a philosophy, an attitude, and not merely a set of technologies and tools. Web 2.0 is arguably one of the most abstract paradigms in the recent history, and that lends to the challenges of its adoption within an enterprise. It needs to be noted that Web 2.0 is more than technology, and yet looking at any job postings nowadays, you would observe that the Web 2.0 experience as requirement for only IT jobs. And, it’s also interesting that when I ask the IT guys with Web 2.0 experience on their resumes, “what is Web 2.0?”, 95% of the time I get an answer that it’s “AJAX”!

Most IT managers I spoke to strongly feel that Web 2.0 belongs to the Internet, to the Social Networking sites, and is a detriment to productivity within the enterprise. The principles of network affects, harnessing collective intelligence, and architecture of participation do not factor in the design methodologies of traditional enterprise software development. The idea of collaboration using Wikis, Blogs with in the enterprise is highly unfavorable by most IT managers and developers. The reason for this is that IT has worked hard in putting structure around an organization’s information in terms of relational databases, and systems that define clear ways of performing business operations. And, bringing informal and community-driven technologies such as podcasts, blogs, and wikis into mainstream of enterprise computing reminds some IT folks the days when email is used as enterprise workflow system. But again with all that structure and systems in place, if one takes a stroll in the work areas of enterprise employee’s cubicles, you would see a ton of unstructured information in terms of sticky notes, spreadsheets, documents and transcript forms of data that the employees use on a daily basis. IT departments need to notice these unmet needs of the “Long Tail” of enterprise needs that depend on individual, informal contributions to be fulfilled.

Another interesting concept of Web 2.0 is “design for hackability and remixability”. This leads the focus to public APIs and mashups. IT infrastructure and system administrators will be quick to weigh in to say an absolute NO, due to the security issues they brings in. I expected to see the other technology related concept of “perpetual beta” to get serious momentum in organizational settings. The misconception of perpetual beta in lieu of quality assurance can be challenging to IT managers to adopt this style of agile product release cycles. It’s interesting to notice that how IT departments that have been “technology enablers” can be not so enabling with paradigms such as Web 2.0! Corporate IT departments over the years institutionalized several disruptive technologies in the enterprises, but the Web 2.0 is more disruptive to the traditional beliefs and notions of the IT departments.

In addition to traditional IT mindset, lack of management clarity is another huge challenge for Web 2.0 to take root in enterprise. In most enterprises, Web 2.0 either remains as an IT term or treated as irrelevant. For most organizations’ marketing departments, Web 2.0 still means signing up with Internet marketing services that spam MySpace and other social networks. Most marketing departments continue their dependency on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) services and ignore the potential of what Web 2.0 initiatives can do for them in terms of customer acquisition.

Several organizations treat Web 2.0 technologies and community based collaboration as taboo and opportunities to waste time. The inherent concepts behind these technologies and artifacts are completely ignored. The negative affects of the Internet and collaboration are used to negate the benefits these paradigms can offer to an enterprise. I have read a book several years ago. Though, I don’t remember the author’s name, there was a great quote that’s stuck in my mind. The quote goes something like this “In an enterprise, most work and successes are achieved (for the enterprise) through informal associations and ad hoc networks that thrive in the enterprise social community”. This is so very true. The achievement of goals and successes in an enterprise doesn’t correlate with the organizational charts; they are achieved through informal friendships and associations diligent employees form. Blogs, Wikis and such Web 2.0 artifacts are tuned towards human learning and human expression methods that are non-linear. Wouldn’t be easy to embrace them and see how it fits in the enterprise rather than ruling them out?

Another challenge is the evolving nature of Web 2.0 integration in the enterprise. Technologies are still emerging and in their infancy stage currently that tie all the informal and unstructured information and data that Web 2.0 artifacts can offer and to mine all the intelligence into a structured form. This vertical in software product market will continue to grow and has a lot of promise in the next few years.

Technology paradigms can be implemented in an enterprise with certain level of effort and with the support of change champions. Web 2.0, being more of a philosophy, and way of doing business has a tough adoption cycle in an enterprise and a longer learning curve for everyone. Implementing Web 2.0 unlike any other initiative we have experienced requires a serious change of course, a departure from status-quo of how businesses are run, and how work is viewed. Like they say, change should come from with in and from the top to the bottom in an enterprise. The success of Web 2.0 in the enterprise is completely driven by the commitment of management to pursue new ways of running and doing business where every employee is a true collaborator and the enterprise learns from its work, every single day.