Half of the Technology Writers in the World Suck - March 3, 2008
Posted by Scott Klososky on March 3rd, 2008 technology Add comments
The other half are OK. I continue to see articles with the title “Will Web 2.0 Invade Organizations?” This is example one why half suck. This is like asking, “Will athletes use less steroids this year?” The answer has already been established. I try to give them the benefit of the doubt and try to imagine that they are just debating the other side of an issue, however it all seems like such a waste of words. We will soon look back at Web 1.0 and 2.0 and it will be clear the 1.0 was about commerce - selling things over the Web, with Web 2.0 being all about improved tools to communicate and collaborate over the Web. Gee, do we communicate and collaborate inside of organizations? Since I spend my days immersed in technology conversations of many forms with many people, it is easy to hold my finger to the air and see what people are interested in using in their work world.
Just in the last couple of weeks, I talked to a start up that is developing a method for people to anonymously turn in email offenders who forward unwanted things, and friends that are not friends that send you requests to join. They get notified so they are aware that they are doing something uncool. Then I saw some edgy ideas for creating an analytic package that monitors your email so you can see the average time it takes for you to respond to your email, among many other pieces if data. Someone just today asked me if I had used Googles Grand Central because they loved the one telephone number for life concept. Add to that the people that have asked me how a wiki can be used in a business in the last few weeks and you can see why I say that it is a waste of time to be writing about whether Web 2.0 has come to the organization.
The company portal has become the company eCommunity - not just data sharing, but also conversation sharing. The company newsletter has now become the company blogsphere and there are a lot more interesting things being said. Human beings are very good at adapting to new tools when they find that they are effective. Sure, the older generations might be a little slower in general to adopt, but the reality is, they do adopt something that works. The last 5 years has given us a suite of fantastic communication and collaboration tools, and the fact is that we are not done with the progress yet. We are not ready for Web 3.0 because we are still digesting 2.0 dogma. So in order to be helpful to the writers that seem to struggle with topics that might be more interesting to write about, I have created a short list for this week…
1. Should organizations legislate what software people use or should everyone get to choose their own personal set of tools?
2. How much more valuable are employees that have a skill (accounting, sales, operations, etc) plus great technology awareness?
3. How might the US government look different if it was highly technology driven?
4. What will be the long term impact of technology on the millennial generation?
Now if writers would just tackle issues like this, I would not have to get so frustrated when I look at headlines each day!!
Scott
Interesting site of the Day: SEOmoz.org Web 2.0 Awards offers a huge list of great sites in the Web 2.0 collaborative vein. The list is massive, take some time and see what’s out there.
Tags: Google, Web 2.0, Web 3.0
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