The Orange Chair

How do you spread Enterprise 2.0 inside a company where people don’t interact in ways that would help them find out about new technologies? Here’s from Enterprise 2.0 Evangelist: Spreading Enterprise 2.0 - Take it offline:

However we soon realised we were missing a massive chunk of the workforce. Large swathes of people in many companies interact with technology only when they need to, and when they do they stick to what they know (in this case email and a few internal news sites served up in IE).

We just had to go offline. So here are some of the things we produced:

• Business cards (similar to above) with teaser info on the front and more detailed info on the reverse. We handed these out wherever and whenever possible. People liked them and we still see them on desks, shelves and wedged in keyboards today
• Neschens were printed and put on display in high traffic areas (as in photo). The neschens detailed Enterprise 2.0 events and pointed to online resources
• Posters – quick and easy, although these ones were quite edgy. Different to most posters you see in large companies. i.e. not “Climb the highest peak of success” with a picture of a mountain….yuk!
• Handouts – these were more like quick tips on the tools
• Speakers – we managed to secure some great speakers to inspire people with the possibilities of web2.0 in the workplace
• Lunch 2.0 type meet-ups – to discuss blogs, wikis, podcasting, anything really

Enterprise 2.0 Evangelist: Spreading Enterprise 2.0 - Take it offline

In his blog, the Technium, Kevin Kelly has suggestions for any business that has to deal with the challenge of everything becoming free. Which businesses are those? Every business. Not just the music business, or the software business, but even manufacturers of things such as cell phones. Emerging technologies will continue to push this trend.

What’s the answer? Kelly talks about eight generatives:

“These generatives apply to all digital copies, but also to any kind of copy where the marginal cost of that copy approaches zero… Even material industries are finding that the costs of duplication near zero, so they too will behave like digital copies. Maps just crossed that threshold. Genetics is about to. Gadgets and small appliances (like cell phones) are sliding that way. Pharmaceuticals are already there, but they don’t want anyone to know. It costs nothing to make a pill. We pay for Authenticity and Immediacy in drugs. Someday we’ll pay for Personalization.”

The eight generatives are

• Immediacy
• Personalization
• Interpretation
• Authenticity
• Accessibility
• Embodiment
• Patronage
• Findability

You competition will be reading about them on the WSJ.com or businessweek.com in a year or two from now. You can get the jump on them today. See here for the details: Kevin Kelly — The Technium