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Update: Paula and Jevon make a good point that Search on its own is not Enterprise 2.0.

I find it interesting reading about IT being clueless when it comes to Enterprise 2.0 (like Paula Thornton’s recent post over at the FASTForward blog). I do a lot of work in the Enterprise Search space (Search being the first “S” in SLATES), and more often than not we are approached by IT departments looking for a Search solution. They understand the difficulty knowledge workers face in finding enterprise content. I’ve worked closely with several IT departments to integrate Search on their intranets - a task that is very security intensive as Search musn’t expose knowledge workers to content they don’t have access to, and this means close involvement with IT.

I’ve written about this before as have others, but Enterprise Search needs to be the focal point of any Enterprise 2.0 ecosystem. Companies should invest in Search first - they must enable discovery - before collaboration can happen. I applaud the IT departments I’ve dealt with in taking this first step.

So no, I don’t think IT is really clueless.

I’m seeing a lot of momentum behind Enterprise 2.0 in my corporate life and have been encouraged by a few recent events therein. The first involved a workshop we did with a person who’s title was “Head of Emerging Technologies and Solutions”, for, lets just say, a very large and important company, and reports directly to the “C” level. During the workshop HE TOLD US about blogs, wikis, podcasts and gave a great demo of Lotus Connections. Wow. Never before have I talked to a potential client about Enterprise 2.0 who knew more about it than I did.

The second event was less significant, but there is another large company employs person who’s title is “Catalyst of Magic”? No joke. And this person also reports directly to the “C” level and is active in evangelizing Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 internally.

I must say these are encouraging signs that the larger corporations get it.

I discovered this “Enterprise 2.0″ thing in 2006 and thought, much like Dion, that 2007 would be the year of Enterprise 2.0. I’ve certainly been doing a lot of work within my firm and with clients on the topic and have been encouraged by the interest I’ve seen. But that’s really all it is at this point, “interest”.

So where are all of the Enterprise 2.0 implementations that we were expecting this year? It’s already the middle of May, and as far as I know there haven’t been any major announcements of large-scale E2.0 roll outs. But maybe that’s just it. Maybe there will never be any sudden, large-scale adoption from a major company. And to me this makes sense.

We talk about bottom-up adoption (a slow process), and in my experience this is exactly what’s happening. I spoke to another client about Enterprise 2.0 the other day, and while to most of them this was brand new, one member raised his hand and said they’d been using wikis, social networking and Google Map mashups across a few groups for a while. “Really, cool” - the others said. This revelation also helped legitimize what I was saying, as someone from within their organization had independently discovered these tools and found value in them without influence from me or my firm.

So, to answer my question, Enterprise 2.0 implementations are coming, quietly, slowly, and from the bottom-up.

I was reading ITSInsider yesterday and was thrilled to discover Enterprise 2.0 TV.  I love the idea and definitely recommend you check it out.

I’ve stated a few times that I work for a global consulting firm that generates most of its revenue from large, systems integration projects using Oracle or SAP technologies.  I’ve been on several projects like these over the years and I’m a bit tired of them.

To me the sexiest thing happening in the industry is Enterprise 2.0, hands down.  The problem is the revenue model is unproven.  There is a lot of risk for companies like mine in investing too much time in technologies that may not yield the profit margins that complex SI projects do.

There is a small and growing group of us that is determined to make Enterprise 2.0 work both internally and externally.  The challenge for us is prioritizing this with our “day jobs” - the complex projects that actually make us profitable.  This may be the reason why larger companies get on board with industry trends closer to the top of the bell curve.  I think there’s a great opportunity for smaller companies to establish themselves in the Enterprise 2.0 market, but I’ll also warn that time is running out for them as large players like Oracle, BEA, Microsoft and IBM get into the mix, and CIOs are used to doing business with these organizations.