Social Glass

In a previous post I mentioned that corporations will adopt Enterprise 2.0 methodologies to improve their bottom line.   As is the case with any cutting edge, rarely been implemented, technology, it’s difficult to measure the ROI of Enterprise 2.0 as it hasn’t been done in many places.

Sure we can take tidbits of information, like Euan Semple’s anecdote where a BBC producer found all of the content he needed to do a story on being single through a internal thread on the topic.  Or Firestoker’s example where Jevon McDonald was able to help a fast food franchise grow from 600 to 1,800 stores without additional headcount due to information sharing.

But how do we measure the ROI companies should expect after investing in an Enterprise 2.0 solution?

How do we approach a Fortune 500 company and convince them that Enterprise 2.0 will improve their bottom line without quals like “another client of ours saved $50,000,000 over 2 years due to the efficiency gains achieved through their Enterprise 2.0 system”?

I suppose with industry players like IBM, Microsoft and Intel (with Lotus Connections, Sharepoint 2007and Suite Two, respectively) hitting the market with “Enterprise 2.0″ solution offerings the market is becoming legitimized.  And for their solutions to sell these companies are going to have to figure out how to relate the business value to large organizations for us.

The next couple of months will be interesting.