Communications - December 2010

distinction we noted between the internal and external deployment of Web 2.0 technologies during our interviews (see Figure 2).

Table 2 outlines some expectations data. What did senior managers think about the contributions Web 2.0 technologies could make to corporate productivity and management?

The survey data suggests expectations were generally positive, even though most respondents (55%) expect “medium” impact, and 23% expect it to be “high.” This combined 78% response suggests the majority of respondents expect the impact of Web 2.0 technologies to be significant. There is a lot of optimism out there.

Table 3 suggests that most respondents expect Web 2.0 technologies to affect knowledge management, collaboration, and communications; many also expected them to positively affect customer relationship management, innovation, and training. Rapid application development was expected to lag relative to the other areas.

Table 4 outlines what happened vs. what respondents thought would happen. For example, knowledge management was expected to be more important than it turned out to be. Collaboration and communications were slightly exaggerated in the expectations survey data, though collaboration and communications were still highly affected by Web 2.0 technologies. Expectations lagged for innovation, training, customer relationship management, and rapid application development. What could explain the optimism that yielded to reality? Cynics might point to pundit hype and vendor exaggeration of technology capabilities, something many vendors do routinely. Others might point to naiveté about early vs. man-aged-technology adoption processes. Regardless of the reason, we found a gap between what was expected and what actually occurred.

Table 5 shifts to a lower level of
analysis, assessing the impact of
knowledge management. The four
metrics—sharing, retrieving, orga-
nizing, and leveraging knowledge—
indicate that Web 2.0 technologies
contributed significantly to sharing,
retrieving, and organizing knowledge
but less to leveraging knowledge for
problem solving. This makes Web 2.0
technologies (for knowledge manage-
ment) more descriptive than prescrip-
tive, more operational than strategic.

Table 9. Customer relationship management impact data by ability.

in the area of customer relationship management, have Web 2.0 technologies contributed to your organization’s ability to…

not at all Very little

42.1% ( 32) 30.3% ( 23)

mine customer data more effectively “Touch” more customers differently Solicit customer insights and concerns Communicate with customers more effectively

Somewhat

21.1% ( 16)

A great deal Response Total

6.6% ( 5) 76

34.2% ( 26) 28.9% ( 22) 22.4% ( 17) 14.5% ( 11)

76

36.8% ( 28) 25.0% ( 19) 26.3% ( 20) 11.8% ( 9)

76

32.9% ( 25) 21.1% ( 16) 39.5% ( 30)

6.6% ( 5)

76

Table 10. Web 2.0 technologies and customer relationship management.

in terms of improving customer relationship management, which Web 2.0 technologies have contributed the most? (Please select all that apply.) Wikis Internal employee blogs External customer blogs rSS filters Folksonomies/ content management mashups virtual worlds Internal crowdsourcing External crowdsourcing Internal social networks External social networks We have not seen any improvement in customer relationship management. other (please specify):