Social Glass

I like what I read in Andrew McAffee’s latest post, where he describes Enterprise 2.0 as

Intranets that resemble today’s Internet…

This is a great metaphor for the value proposition of Enterprise 2.0. The “common worker” at least understands that the internet consists of a collection of content repositories (i.e. websites), and that he can find content through simple search engines like google.com. He’s also starting to understand the concept of blogs and wikis (albeit through his kids), and that he too can contribute to said content repositories, and that his content is then also searchable with the rest of it.

While I think there’s value in breaking Enterprise 2.0 into an approach (i.e. SLATES) and philosophizing about what Enterprise 2.0 will look like, I think it’s also important to remember KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid), especially when explaining this stuff to the “common worker”. It is the common worker, remember, that we need to buy into this in the first place as he and his cohorts are the long-tail of the enterprise.

So I come full circle. When the guy in Accounting asks about Enterprise 2.0, something like picture everything you like about the internet, then picture having that here at work. That’s a good high-level start and is sure to lead to lots of questions and interest.