I believe this very strongly, and I think it’s one of the most critical cultural changes that will determine which organizations thrive and which ones lose relevance.

Bill Ives echoes this point in his summary of J.P. Rangaswami’s presentation at the FASTForward ’08 conference. Rengaswami talked of the “new polarization” in organizations, or how the customer gains control.

The fights have traditionally been within the IT departments. Now they have moved outside.

The first polarization is expertise. People of his and my generation believe experience is necessary for real innovation. We need to stop rejecting youth.

The second is participation. Now people can participate in much more than possible. He gave as an example, the numerous donations in small amounts that Obama has raised for the US primary campaign through the web on his way to a record month for total contributions ever.

The third dimension is time. He quoted Rupert Murdoch that fast is the new good. Now we have stuff in Beta all the time. JP said that IT has to get over these three concepts to succeed. Now the users have already breached the IT wall and running around inside the fort. It is too late to keep them out.

Sandy Kemsley summarizes Andrew McAfee’s and Don Tapscott’s presentations at the FASTForward ’08 conference earlier this week. McAfee, who coined the term “Enterprise 2.0” and is therefore eligible to use it , looked at the state of tools and technologies, how to foster adoption, and cultural necessities for success. Here are a few selected points, with my comments in italics:

1. Tools are intuitive and easy to use — a key to acceptance of the technology, but something that’s also difficult to achieve. Building a quality tool isn’t easy, but it is worth it. Truly good tools will stand the test of time and be flexible enough to adapt to changing needs.
2. Tools are egalitarian and freeform, Freeform is critical. Specific workflows and procedures inherently limit the range of uses of a tool, and the wider the range of uses, the more people will use it.
3. Borders seem appropriate to users, so that it’s obvious how far specific information should be shared, and how easy it is to find other people and information. Whenever you add something new to your wiki, think about whether it needs to be secured or can be shared. You’ll give others a wealth of information about what you do that will help build interaction and cut down on low-level work, like responding to emails requesting information.
4. Patient and dedicated evangelists exist: those spending their time popularizing the tools and techniques because they believe that they can make a difference. Hear, hear. In every organization I’ve worked for, I have done this. I know you are too, and your work is critical to the future of your organization.
5. Effort has official and unofficial support from the top: both funding and blessings from senior levels to allow evangelists and others to work their magic, but also a mindset that that enterprise is serious about being engaged in the initiatives, such as executive-level blogging. This is the essential balance that supports growth of wikis. Day to day growth needs to be pushed by grassroots buzz, and long term acceptance comes from the confidence of knowing that people in senior leadership are being shown the value and encouraging growth.
6. Slack exists in the workweek; recognizing this gives people the latitude to blog or create wiki content within the organization rather than appear to be busy when they’re not. Do you have slack in your workweek? Well, there you go – perfect time to work on next week’s meeting agenda on the wiki, or help edit and refine project documents with someone else on your team.
7. Top management accepts lateralization, which facilitates public content being created by any level within an organization as well as its customers and partners, not just through a sanitized corporate communications process. It’s like a Niagara Falls of free, high-quality, high-value PR. Who wouldn’t want that?
8. There are lots of young people. This one isn’t so much an indictment of older people, but an indication of how well an organization is doing with its use of social media. People my age are going to work for the organizations that demonstrate they get it, so if an organization has a lot of young people, it must be doing something right.

David Weinberger’s keynote from the FastForward08 conference:

“…As information – and, importantly, metadata – get digitized, we have to unlearn millennia of lessons reality has taught us. The changes affect not only the basic principles of organization, but also who gets believed and why. In this session, David Weinberger explores what happens to experts, authorities, and the business and institutions that depend on them as we move to social knowledge, rich in connections but often uncontrolled and uncontrollable.”