The Orange Chair

One of the challenges we face is working with emerging markets for Enterprise 2.0. We aren’t working with a well-defined space, clear problems, and hard numbers on return on investment. Instead, there’s plenty of hype, unrealistic expectations, and disillusionment. But there’s also value, and I’m looking forward to helping more companies discover what they can do with these emerging ideas and technologies.

Here’s what Jevon MacDonald of firestoker.com suggested on his blog:

You can approach this problem 2 ways. The first is to offer a solution that solves a basic need across a host of industries. Jeff mentioned Echosign as a great example of this, their digital signature solution is growing steadily across a large customer base and they are potentially becoming a platform for other identity-based solutions. This is dramatically different from selling a suite of tools to a host of industries, it is focused on solving a specific problem using the 2.0 motif.

The second approach is to sell in to existing vertical markets. That means you are building an Enterprise 2.0 specific toolkit for an industry that needs it. In doing this your solution will have not offer just the same Social Bookmarking, Tagging, Blogs, and Wikis that you probably have, but you will need to offer vertical-specific features which string your Enterprise 2.0 tools together. In doing this there is also a potentially lucrative platform play in partnering with other E2.0 companies who want to sell in to your vertical market.

Jevon MacDonald, Enterprise 2.0: Where the f$#@ is my market? | socialwrite.com

To read more about creating markets, check out:

Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore Read more about this book…