What is "2.0"?
Sam Lawrence from Jive Software presented the keynote address at the recent Putting Collaboration to Work conference, held in Portland, Oregon on June 8th, 2007. (See the video). He gave an entertaining overview of how we've gotten to the "everything is 2.0" world. But what is at the core of 2.0? He drew on a painful event in our history, the attacks of 9/11, to make his point. Before 9/11, the World Trade Center Towers were symbolic of economic vitality and strength. They were an institution. After the attacks, the focus was on the people who were in the towers. Sure, news pundits talked about how this was a symbolic attack, but in general, the focus was on the people. I happened to be in mid-town Manhattan the morning of the attacks, and was stuck there until the following Saturday. I spent a lot of time walking the city, looking into people's eyes. I saw thousands of postings with pictures and names of loved ones. I attended prayer meetings where people connected, and prayed for missing loved ones. Nobody prayed for an institution. Nobody was looking for an institution. They were all thinking about people.
So what is at the core of "Collaboration 2.0", "Enterprise 2.0", and "put-your-own-word-here 2.0"? It is about people. Connecting people, creating networks, co-creating products, services, and information with people from across the organization, city, country, and globe. My first CEO loved to say "Our company's most valuable asset goes home every night." He was right, although we didn't like to think of ourselves as assets. Collaboration 2.0 is all about recognizing the value in people in and around an organization, because they really are more valuable than anything else the organization may lay claim to.
Dave Kresta
in Putting Collaboration to Work Conference 2007
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Reader Comments (1)
I've just read "The Company" by Max Barry. He refers degradingly to the term and department called Human Resources. The people don't see themselves as exploitable resources. They see themselves as people.
I have to agree with your point. People are why communities form. The character of a community or a city is about the people, not the land, not the landscape, not the skyline, not the configuration of streets and subways.
And more interestingly, communities unite around stories, values, experiences, commonalities.
Scott Bedbury, author of "A New Brand World," and former head of marketing for Starbucks, realized that the brand of the company was an extension of the face-to-face experience between customers and the people behind the counter. Starbucks, each and every location, is a community of people who share an affinity for coffee.
But, no matter how you brew it, it's always about people.