Cisco Will Prove the Model

It’s about that time again when bloggers and pundits start thinking about predictions for the New Year.  I took a look at mine for 2009 and was pleased I was correct at least some of the time.  One that is coming true, albeit a little later than I had hoped, is this one: John Chambers

John Chambers is talking and walking the talk.  BusinessWeek has a feature this week on “Cisco’s Extreme Ambitions.”  The story details how Cisco is leveraging non-traditional methods to turbo-charge its growth and deliver strong margins to Wall Street.  One of those innovative tactics is democratizing decision-making and using a variety of web-based tools to identify talent.

‘…John Chambers and Cisco’s entire leadership are focused on driving Cisco’s growth and business results.’ Chambers admits the council structure is unusual but argues it’s the only way a company Cisco’s size can move as fast as it needs to. He says the councils work and help identify talent throughout the company.

Cisco is taking on a lot of risk and reinventing the company from the ground up driven by the  principles of 2.0 transformation.  Chambers said in his address at Cisco Live, “Organizational structures enabled by the network as a platform can change the speed and dynamics of a company.”

This is what we talk about when we’re talking about transformational change and the reinvention of work.  The end game is market competitiveness.  BusinessWeek sums it up:

In a sense, Chambers is bidding for a place in the history books. He’s trying to use the ambitious expansion and unconventional management strategy to demonstrate how a company the size of Cisco can remain fast-growing and nimble. If he succeeds, he may end up regarded as a business icon, along the lines of General Electric’s Jack Welch.

Like Marc Benioff, Chambers is betting the business.   Perfect time, incidentally, for Andrew McAfee whose ideas are now seeding The Harvard Business Review, management book shelves, and The McKinsey Quarterly.

As a Matter of Fact…

Well, well, well.   Didn’t I relish that gushing endorsement of social computing last week by Marc BenioffYes. I did. As the conversation took off on Twitter, what was game-changing-significant was that a tech celeb– known very well in Enterprise circles, as well as the financial community– threw his Enterprise SaaS hat in the ring and announced the company’s, “Biggest breakthrough ever: Salesforce Chatter.”  Of course, Salesforce Chatter is the company’s answer to social computing.

Sometimes it takes a celebrity to help a new technology cross the chasm.  But more often than not, however, the most influential catalyst is market acceptance.  So, whilst I welcome the newfound attention and consciousness-raising for 2.0 adoption in business, I’m eager to start publishing some of the factual data that supports the hype is not without merit.

The 2.0 Adoption Council is now unveiling some of the research we’ve been collecting on our members.  The first synopsis report should be ready this week, available for download.   The survey reflects responses from over 70 of our members spanning over 17 industries, managing over $50M in budgets expressly dedicated to Enterprise 2.0 initiatives.

Here are some quick data points that are proving interesting:

adoption research

In addition to our survey research, The Council has also released its first “how-to” report, “A Framework for 2.0 Adoption in the Enterprise.”  This report was written by Gil Yehuda after interviewing members who described a narrative on how rolling out an initiative worked at their large enterprise.  The paper tracks neatly through a logical iterative sequence and “Director’s Commentary” on how to successfully introduce 2.0 technology and practices to a diverse employee base.

Picture 10

The market survey results should be ready this week for download free (courtesy of OpenText who sponsored the study), but the “Framework” report is available now for $425 in our store.

More good news coming from the Council includes the announcements of some strategic relationships, as well as a new web site currently in production.

Stay tuned.

Checkmate

Enterprise 2.0 is a Crock!!! says Dennis (the 2.0 Menace).

Here’s who says it isn’t:

Accenture+

Adidas Group+

Alcatel-Lucent+

Alcoa+

Allstate+

Alstom Power+

AMD+

AT&T+

Bell Canada+

Booz Allen Hamilton+

British Petroleum+

CapitalOne+

Cardiff University (UK)+

Chubb+

Cisco+

Compagnie de Saint Gobain+

Compuware+

Corning+

Covidien+

CSC+

Deloitte+

Deutsche Bank+

The Disney Corporation+

DuPont+

Electronic Arts+

Eli Lilly+

EMC Corp+

European Central Bank+

FDA+

Ford Motor Company+

GDF Suez+

General Mills+

General Motors+

GlaxoSmithKline +

Goldman Sachs+

Hatch Associates+

Hewlett-Packard+

Honeywell International+

HSBC+

Humana+

IBM+

Intel Corporation+

International Paper+

Johnson and Johnson+

Juniper Networks+

Lockheed Martin+

Lowe’s Companies+

Lyonnaise des Eux/Suez Environment+

Massachusetts Institute of Technology+

McDonald’s+

McKinsey & Company+

Medtronic, Inc.+

Mercer+

Merck+

MetLife+

Microsoft+

NASA+

Nike+

Nokia+

Océ+

Penn State University+

Pitney Bowes+

Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne+

PricewaterhouseCoopers+

Procter & Gamble+

Progressive Insurance+

Raytheon+

Research in Motion+

SAP+

SAP BusinessObjects+

Schlumberger+

Seagate+

SK Telecom+

State of Maryland+

Sun Microsystems (Oracle)+

Swedish Armed Forces+

Texas Instruments+

The Washington Post+

United Business Media+

Wells Fargo+

Wipro Technologies.

And we’re just getting started…

Are you an E20 expert? Prove it!

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The 2.0 Adoption Council has begun work on a new initiative – an Adoption Index that will measure the adoption of 2.0 technologies within large enterprises. We’ll be announcing the results of our member survey at the Enterprise 2.0 conference next week, and we want to get all the friends and fans (and Twitter lists) involved.  The bigger the crowd– the smarter we all are.  We’d like to engage the entire community in predicting E2.0 adoption trends  We’re partnering with Crowdcast to launch a prediction market that will tie in to our next survey, which will be conducted in June 2010.

As an Enterprise 2.0 fan, you’ll have the opportunity to make bets about what you think will happen with hot topics such as “What percent of budgets will be allocated to ongoing community management?” and “What percent of organizations will report using mash-ups inside the firewall?” You’ll also be able to see what others think.  We’ll be giving out prizes for the most accurate bets, so if you’re ready to put your (virtual) money where your mouth is, you can request an exclusive invitation to participate here.

Why get involved? This prediction market, the first of its kind, will allow us to harness the wisdom of a broad group of experts – (that’s you!) – to develop forecasts of Enterprise 2.0 trends.  This will be an excellent complement to our 2.0 Adoption Council state-of-the-market survey, which will provide regular snapshots of the current state of adoption.  Not only will you know the current state of adoption, but you’ll also have insight into where things are heading.

The market will officially launch next Wednesday, November 4 at 3:00 pm, right after the 2.0 Adoption Council research presentation, “Straight from the Horses’ Mouth”  by Carl Frappaolo and Dan Keldsen at 2:40, when the results of the first Adoption Council survey will be announced.  Request an invitation today here.

Enterprise 2.0 Demystified

Novell hired me to do a short webinar explaining the chronology of Enterprise 2.0 and some of the key challenges in embracing it. I created this presentation which has a visual I am continuing to refine that explains e20 relative to the social memes. I created this presentation before the meme wars began this week. Enterprise 2.0 still works to define the business of enterprise transformation for the folks who are currently committing talent and investment to transforming large organizations.

In my experience the word “social” has always presented problems in the enterprise. Management exposed to the philosophies of 2.0 thinking, aren’t keen to encourage socializing in the enterprise, but are very willing to improve working. I saw a similar post by Chris Yeh on this theme. Also, we had a good chat internally in the Council about the meme wars, and members expressed their frustration in a wholesale change to the labeling of the sector. It will cause practical disruption and well as introduce confusion at a time when many in the organization were just starting to “get it.”

Many readers of this blog will be receiving an invite to our 2.0 Adoption Community that is still scheduled to launch tomorrow. I hope we can continue this discussion there with an eye toward improving the experience for the most valuable players in this conversation: the customers who are valiantly trying to get this done.