Much of the focus of Web 2.0 applications for organizations to date has been with how organizations can connect with their customers. As such, web 2.0 applications are very much a part of many businesses’ marketing strategies. But to leave it at that is to ignore much of the potential for Web 2.0 to change how organizations function.

Web 2.0 is uniquely suited to help employees collaborate more effectively, and to be more productive. As well, the very nature of web 2.0 applications engenders a completely different relationship between all employees regardless of rank, which, when handled well, promises to enable employee engagement and enhance well designed cultural change programs.

This post is an overview of:
Web 2.0 Applications for Improved Productivity
Web 2.0 Applications for Collaboration
Web 2.0 Applications for Employee Engagement
Web 2.0 Applications for Organizational Culture Change

Web 2.0 Applications for Improved Productivity:

One of the key areas where web 2.0 applications can enhance productivity is through minimizing use of email as a prime communication device.  That email is an inefficient tool is something I think we all know and experience first hand.  Here are some numbers: According to an article produced by IT Business Edge, for the average business user, over 30% of their day is spent creating, reading, responding and organizing email. This time translates into, on average, a cost of over $5000 USD per user per year.

Web 2.0 applications particularly suited to resolving email overload are discussion forums and social networking. Forums are typically used for structured conversations and allow users to go to where the conversation is happening, rather than following it though various emails. Social networks tend to be more informal, with a “water cooler” type atmosphere, as users connect to people beyond their direct network. It is the perfect vehicle for  messages like “Its Karen’s Birthday today” or ‘have you seen my keys I left in the lobby?”.

Web 2.0 Applications for Collaboration:

Enhancing collaboration engenders benefits beyond improving productivity.  Collaboration is a highly effective way for employees  to transfer knowledge, particularly tacit knowledge which comes from experience.  Effective collaboration can also enhance innovation when many minds solve problems together. Another application is for dispersed workers to get things done remotely without having to come together as frequently for face-to face meetings.

The Web 2.0 application most associated with collaboration is the wiki, though it is by no means the only one. Wikis allow communities of users to share authoring by accessing, governing and contributing content to web pages that can become documents. (To learn more see Wiki definition.)

Web 2.0 Applications for Employee Engagement:

Employee engagement is understood as the essence of what motivates employees to give their best effort to the organization employing them. The Conference Board defines employee engagement as “a heightened emotional connection that an employee feels for his or her organization, that influences him or her to exert greater discretionary effort to his or her work”.

So how can social media help? Key factors in engaging employees include trust, linking individual performance to organizational goals, pride in the organization, employee relationships with co-workers and employee relationships with their managers. All of these factors can be enhanced through social media. Employees can have greater access to other employees, can engage in dialogue with leaders in the organization, and can develop a more involved relationship with the organization as a whole through web 2.0-enabled conversations and enhanced participation.

Web 2.0 Applications for Organizational Culture Change

Its a chicken-and-egg thing. It may be that Web 2.0 applications will, by their very nature, engender culture change by allowing conversations and dialogue that could never otherwise have occured. Web 2.0 applications are inherently democratic in that they put all users on a level playing field through universal access and two-way communication. But corporate culture can be the inhibitor for adoption of web 2.0 applications, as well. Research shows that, although social media is not suited to driving organizational culture change, it can, when applied intelligently, support and enhance a cultural shift already taking place in an organization, one that is supported and endorsed by its leaders. (See also Web 2.0 in Your Organization: are You Ready?)

References and Links:

E-Mail Overload Costs Organizations over $5000 per User per Year, IT Business Edge, March 2007

See Web 2.0 Definition for information about individual applications