What is a professional? Well, if we use sports as an analogy then a professional is someone like Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson who get paid for being in the top of their field. Interestingly, Chris Wood who is an amateur placed fifth in this years British Open. Simply put, if you get paid to play then you are a professional. Another definition might be one of certification or a degreed professional. We consider Pharmacists and Medical Doctors professionals because they are licensed by some governing body. That is assuming that you don’t want me to operate on you without a license. In other cases, a person’s place of employment is an indication of professionalism such as journalists who work for the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times. Finally, we might look toward a class of worker to label them professional such as an executive, a blue collar worker or a white collar one. Nothing really wrong with these definitions of professional until you look at them through a 2.0 lens.

Getting paid seems like the easiest definition of a professional. If you perform a function for another you should expect to get paid but we see example after example where people are doing just the opposite. Take open source for example, thousands of people contribute their time and energy and expect no financial reward. Slim devices utilizes an open source model for designing their audio products. Wikipedia enables authors to complete one of the largest bodies of knowledge in the world and they happily do it for nothing. To say one is a professional based up an exchange of currency doesn't really hold up in today's environment.

There is no way around the certified professional, correct? Well, one of the most successful sites out there is WebMD where millions of people research medical issues every day. In fact, some of the TV shows are making fun of people that walk into the doctors office and seem to know more about the medical condition than the doctor themselves. Medical wikis and collaborative communities are forming around specific conditions like Diabetes which allow patients to form a community for sharing information and emotional support.

The place of employment is interesting in that we have a wonderful example with Mr. Edwards where the traditional media didn’t seem to want to get involved but the bloggers/National Enquirer had a field day. The authenticity of the Killian documents (Dan Rather, RatherGate) was challenged within hours on Internet forums and blogs, with questions initially focused on alleged anachronisms in the documents typography. Are the people that break these stories professionals or are the professionals the ones that replicate their investigative journalism?

It really wasn't that long ago when the person at the top of the food chain was the most knowledgably. The manager was the most experienced person in the group and leadership provided through a predictable cycle. With the Internet, the volume of information, and the speed of change this model has been inverted. The most knowledgeable person in the business is the person on the front line. It has to be this way in order for the business to be an agile and responsive to the customer. Class means so little now in the definition of professionalism that it hardly requires mentioning. So what is a professional? If not by pay, not by experience, not by class, and not by a certification then how do we define a professional these days? They refer to this phenomenon as the Rise of the Amateur.

Several readers of this blog have pointed out that I left off the Customer off as a value-add component from my Enterprise 2.0 Blueprint. At first, I was resistant to change it since we are talking about Enterprise 2.0 and not Web 2.0. I don't consider companies deploying Web 2.0 technologies to interface with their customers as part of the Enterprise 2.0 equation. However, this is where my mistake is getting clearer. The purpose of the employee, organization, and business is to serve the customer and to that end, I needed to include them in the blueprint. But what value-add does the customer get from a company that deploys Enterprise 2.0 technologies?

1. Lower Costs due to the efficiency gained by a collaborative culture
2. New products and services by leveraging the internal network of resources
3. Improved Customer Service with the openness required
4. New Markets that emerge with organizations actually communicate/

Here is an updated version of the Enterprise 2.0 Blueprint. What else am I missing here?

Business and technology folks enjoy learning about the current trends and drivers toward transformation. Business leaders do it in order to create strategies for the future direction of the business and we, as technologists, do it because talking about it makes us sound cool. Ok, that's not really fair, or it it?  I was perusing the web last week and came across slide deck that described the transformation models for the next generation of the enterprise. You can review the slide deck by clicking here but I will warn you it's buried on slide 16 and almost unreadable. That being said, here they are along with an indication of the direction of the trend.

A couple worthy of noting: our work ethic is declining, utilization of collaborative applications is increasing, company loyalty is down (both ways) as is the size of the workforce. If you could imagine an organization being describe by these factors it would be small, fast, agile, flexibly, innovative, and fleeting.  Does that describe your organization?  Which trends do you agree or disagree with?

Economic Trends

• Lifetime of Products and Services +
• Global Innovation +
• Innovation and Growth Cycle +
• Enterprise Number of Employees -
• Number of Independent Contractors +
• Work Movement Freedom +
• Enterprise Efficiency +
• Enterprise Revenues -
• Enterprise Profits +
• Multi-Language +
• Constant Change +
• Systems Complexity +
• Economic Instability +
• Individual Education Level +
• Cost of Collaboration -
• Open Intellectual Property +
• Building 21 Century Economic Model (Fast, Flexible, Productive) +
• Internet Industry Winners +

Social Trends

• Individual Lifespan +
• Population +
• Need to Share Information +
• Belief Access to Digital Content is Free +
• Work Ethic -
• Openness +
• Peering +
• Sharing +
• Multi-User Participation +
• Always Connected +
• Security Concerns +
• Security Incidents +
• Privacy -
• Size of Workforce -
• Size of N-Generation +

Business Trends

• Need for Predictability +
• Time to Market -
• Collaboration within Ecosystem +
• Customer Personalization +
• Personal Interaction +
• Electronic Business +
• Value Products and Services +
• Cost of Products and Services -
• Transaction Based Pricing +
• Organization Dynamic Configuration +
• Western Business Tenets +
• Employee and Employer Loyalty -

Environment Trends

• Green +
• Nuclear Power Generation +
• Energy Cost +
• Natural and Un-Natural Disasters +

Technology Trends

• Technology Amplifies Culture +
• Network Centric Enterprise +
• Ubiquitous Edge Devices +
• Information Explosion +
• Web 3.0 Semantic +
• Integration of Software Engineering and System Engineering +
• Complexity of IT Systems +
• Criticality of Software Intensive Systems +
• Agents and Sensors +
• Security Context Awareness +
• Enterprise Use of Animation +
• Bandwidth +
• Processing Power +
• Modeling and Simulation Usage +
• Hardware Component Power +
• Search Engine Predicting +
• Open Source Platform Usage +
• Legacy Systems Value -
• Nanotechnology Value +

There is a dark side to Web 2.0 technologies. Like its predecessor Web 1.0, this technology transformation will alter the fabric of how business gets done. I was watching the Antique Road Show last week and one of the hosts made an interesting comment about the web. He basically said that the internet has destroyed the antique business with price transparency. Prices had eroded with the sites like eBay entering into the market. The example item was a poster which was once thought as extremely rare until the internet exposed the actually number of available prints. Hence the price drops and the profit is removed for the individual dealer. This is really no different than how the web eliminated the need for travel agents and reduced the new car negotiation method to bringing in a web quote. Simply put, the web changed everything and historically speaking is the number one profit killer of all time.

Will Web 2.0 have the same impact on the business world? While that remains to be seen, we have already seen several examples of where this technology has had a dramatic effect. Take for example the Kryptonite lock that was advertised as the "toughest bicycle security in moderate to high crime areas". It didn't take long for someone to pick the lock with a Bic pen and post the video on YouTube. The company was forced to recall 380,000 locks. One response to this type of transparency is to hide behind the corporate walls and discourage open communications. The idea is that if we shut off communications then no one will know our dark side. But the authors of Funky Business (Kjell Nordstrom and Jonas Ridderstrale) said it wonderfully, the "stupid, loyal and humble customer, employee, patient or citizen is dead".

Other companies are leveraging the Web 2.0 technology to increase their business value in very creative ways. Blendtec is a manufacture of high end blending machines. They routinely post videos of the blending odd items like Golf Balls or the iPhone just to demonstrate the power of the product. The idea is creative and viral which is exactly what you want to see in a 2.0 world. Organizations that hide behind corporate speak will continue to find themselves on the defensive and losing market share. The dark side of Web 2.0 is reserved for those companies that fail to change; inside or outside.

It was 1973 and I had just got my Evil Knievel jump cycle; the one where you wind the crank, hit the release and watch Evil speed down the hallway toward the makeshift ramp. Soon the sun was up and I wandered past my 3 Speed bike (with banana seat) and the idea hit me. Evil plus Bike plus Towel for a Cape equals Really Cool and I envisioned myself jumping the creek behind our house. It all seemed easy enough; pile up some dirt, get a running start and glory was mine for the taking. I would be the talk of the school come Monday morning. Sixty minutes later, I am in the emergency room watching my dad faint as they set my arm for a cast.

We seem to have an obsession with people that take risks and emerge as winners. We enjoy watching sports where our heroes risk it all. One of the top shows on TV is House where Dr. House seems to risk his patients life every week and we tune routinely. Our business leaders love to quote the risk takers like Welch, Gates, and Jobs and use the analogies to inspire us. Unfortunately, it is "they" that are the ones that take risks. We on the other hand, do everything we can to avoid risks. We buy flood insurance to protect us from the Noah's revenge. We take those extended warranties to assure ourselves that the new Wii will last forever despite that fact that the next big thing is only a few years away. We take our children to the park that is surrounded by fences and six inches of cushion in case they fall off the monkey bars. We chuckle at warning labels that protect us from ourselves like McDonalds warning that the Coffee may be hot or the superhero costume that says that the "Cape does not enable user to fly".

The problem is that life itself is a risk and life rewards the bold. Enterprise 2.0 is about introducing the idea that you are more than a number. I would like to think I am more than just ts1809 to the corporation. We are entering a new era where the knowledge and information is more important than the physical assets the company keeps on the books. And, it’s not just the knowledge but the timeliness and accuracy of that information. The real value of the company is in the ideas, relationships, innovation, and information that is within each and every one of us. What is the risk of commenting on a blog, sharing your knowledge in the corporate wiki, or integrating collaborative technologies within your organization? What's the risk of not doing it? What's the best thing that can happen if I keep my ideas to myself? The greater risk, to the future of this company, is in not implementing Web 2.0 technologies. Like fossil fuels, the gas tank on cost cutting measures is running close to empty. We must move towards an idea based organization where theses ideas flow freely. We have the tools and technology but are we, as individuals, ready to don the cape and jump over the command and control mentality?

Recently, the Wall Street Journal published an article on why online communities fail. The author, Ben Wortham, quotes a study done by Deloitte on 100 companies that have attempted to build online communities. The research pointed out that around 35% of the companies reviewed had less than 100 members and 25% had fewer than a thousand members. What isn't clear is if these numbers only represented the number contributors or how big the reader population might have been. In some business situations, the contributor rate might be low but the readership rates are extremely high. The report concludes with three key areas of concern for these type of implementations.

1. Too much of a focus on the technology; bells and whistles
2. No fulltime employee engagement or subject matter expertise involved
3. No ROI or metrics used to measure progress

These three elements coincide with what we have seen inside the corporation as well. While #1 has not been as big an issue, #2 and #3 have shown how they can derail even the smallest community effort. That being said, let's add a few more that we have seen over the past few years.

Online communities seem to struggle when there is no real business reason to get involved. Focusing on the business environment, people need a reason to come to the community. This reason may include customer support, tips, techniques, best practices, news, or simple sharing of information. Communities that try the open end or "anything goes" approach will struggle to stay afloat.

The information needs to be updated frequently and by qualified members. Information can become stale real quick and without a constant flow of content, members will find better things to do with their time. How often and how much is up for debate but most blog experts say 2-3 times a week is adequate.

While not covered very often, rewards can be offered to encourage traffic and contributions. We give a book away every month to a random customer just to show our appreciation for the business. Rewards do not have to be physical; they can be emotional such as the ranking and rating of content. Everyone wants to feel needed or that they are helping in some way, so the rewards can be extremely valuable to the life of the community.

Finally, time is often overlooked in this instant gratification environment. While there is no set formula, you need time for the community to evolve. False starts and technology reductionism is a common within large and small groups. So be patient, time is on your side.