The Web, the Web 2.0 and the Organisations
The Web
It was the late nineties. The Web wasn’t quite what it is today. I was working for an Information Technology Education, Consulting and Services company in New Delhi.
As part of an attempt to tap the power of the Internet, a product was offered. The integrated Internet entrepreneurship project. The objective was to get a group of young entrepreneurs, willing-to-forge-an-alliance-with-us, to come and sit in a conference room and listen to us. They would pay to listen to us so they could be successful at their individual e-pursuits. Once armed with the ‘knowledge’ of running an ebusiness, their ideas would be evaluated, detailed business plans created and they would enter a so-called incubation period. This is where our company enters a partnership with them and helps them with the technology and infrastructure. The serious business begins!
Did the product work? Partially. In the process, “We” learned a lot about the Internet. For example, an idea plus a business plan may equal venture capital. But, that may not equal success. The big reason I guess was that back then no one would actually use a credit card and buy stuff off the Internet. The Internet was essentially this thing, that was somehow perceived to be, free (as in free beers)!
At the time, only a few successful Internet companies existed, for example, amazon, ebay, hotmail, geocities, yahoo and so on. Advertising was probably the biggest revenue model.
But we also knew about something else that was happening on the Internet. We, as organisations, were either extremely excited by it, were wary of it, or were completely unaware of it.
It was: “conversations”.
Free (as in freedom), un-tamed, uncensored and often anonymous conversations were occurring on the Internet. People outside the organisation were talking to other people outside the organisation about the organisation. People inside organisations were talking to the ones outside. All this irrespective of where they were and what time of the day it was. The barriers of time, space and distance were being broken down. The word was travelling at the speed of light, reflecting, refracting and distorting on its way all around the world.
We knew that we could either acknowledge and embrace these conversations and be part of them, or we could just shut our ears on them at risk of ceasing to exist. Read more about what we thought we knew about these conversations at the time here: http://www.cluetrain.com/
But that was then.
The Web 2.0
So, what has changed? What’s new in the Web 2.0? Well, for starters, the Web was mostly delivered on your home computer via a dial up connection, that-if-you-were-lucky, would give you a blistering download speed of 56Kbps!
Technology has evolved and become cheap and easy to use. The network is now more resilient and fast. People’s attitude towards the technology has also changed significantly. Chances are that you would have used your credit card on the Internet at least once in the last 30 days. The computers on the Internet are more willing to talk to each other and work in unison to give you an integrated experience.
Social Networks: You can now use your Twitter feed on your Facebook wall and tweet about this excellent play you watched at the theatre five minutes ago using your Android phone.
Entertainment: Your ubuntu + xbmc media PC connected with your HDTV can play your most important TED talks on demand, when you want.
Information: Your wikipeda search function on your iPhone can find to-the-point information about the difference between 1080p and 1080i just when you are looking at the TVs at the local JB HiFi store.
Transaction: Transaction experiences such as, Banking, bill payments, buying, training are also significantly improved and secure.
Communication: Telephone calls in the old days used to cost a fortune. Today you could Skype someone over a 3G/WiFi connection on your iPhone for free.
All in all, Web 2.0 is about more of everything. More capability. More interaction. More communication. Mode multimedia. More content. More integration. More presence.
The Organisations
Yesterday I ‘liked’ the portfolio Facebook page of my high school art teacher! So my former clay-modeling teacher has presence on Web 2.0 and is generating a great response to his body of work from within the community. In the process, he has enhanced Brand Equity.
The Web 2.0 suite of experiences include (non-exhaustive list): Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Wordpress, Wikipedia, Flickr, Digg, Whirlpool.
So what are the possibilities for large organisations?
In order to leverage this new version of the Internet, the organisations have to get real and honest about themselves. They have to first break down the walls of their individual fortresses. Then, they must come out in the open and be willing to talk and let the conversations happen. Here’s an interesting experience I had on the Web 2.0:
I am subscribed to a rather small VOIP (voice over Internet protocol) service provider. I use their services to make cheap global and national phone calls. Their service was a bit choppy a few months ago, so I hopped on to Whirlpool and wrote a rant about their service and how poor the voice quality was. To my surprise, they were on Whirlpool as well. I got a formal response from one of their technicians about the service disruption with a time frame for the corrective action. Lo and behold, the Quality of Service was back to original level within the time frame. They also followed up on Whirlpool to ensure that I was a reasonably satisfied customer.
The point is this: That service-provider and I had a conversation with a positive outcome. Not only that, our conversation is still out there in the open, documented. We also had other enthusiasts contribute to our conversation, either with similar issues, or with some of the solutions they tried to resolve the issues. What was enhanced in the process was that organisation’s Brand Equity. I am still a customer. I have recommended them to a few people who were looking for a similar service.
Some organisations would probably see ‘danger’ written all over this. The others would jump on the opportunity to engage with people positively.
Rodney Miller miller from the Australian Government pointed out in his talk (at the University of Canberra), the government is looking to adopt some of the ethos of Web 2.0. They quite appropriately brand it as Government 2.0. The idea is to engage with people. More importantly, to speak in a language our next generations will understand and relate to.
The Web 2.0 is where most of the market will be in the future!
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