Bill Ives blogs on a discussion at the current Enterprise 2.0 conference about Marcia Conner's discussion with Andrew McAffee, Paul Greenberg and others in his Enterprise 2.0 Conference Notes, and I thought I'd highlight this part:
Marcia said it is not about the technology. You need to look at activities. Marcia also said that the word collaboration will not be discussed as it becomes mainstream. It is what we are doing that will become important. She noticed at this conference that people are sitting alone at the tables doing their work. She also said that HR will become big (for the first time ever Andy added). She has been talking to senior HR people and they are calling exec meetings. Andy asked if anyone is listening. Marcia said these people are becoming more strategic and will have a voice. However, HR will have to undergo a big change to command listeners.
Marcia said the vendors at this conference were not at the last major HR conference because they have the old school view of what HR is. However, the conversations at the HR conference were around doing things in the new way using the new tools that were not there. The social tool vendors need to go to the HR people to help shape the conversations and not wait for the HR people to come to them.
Paul said that some organizations will need to fail for the changes to really occur. Marcia said she sees change occurring as she is being asked to help organizations become more distributed. Ted provided an example of a banker who changed jobs as he was hired to make changes in an old style bank so there is appetite here.
