Sponsored by Enterprise 2.0 Adoption Guide N:Sight Research GmbH
May 09, 2015
Sponsored by
Enterprise 2.0 Adoption Guide
N:Sight Research GmbH
© N:Sight Research GmbH 2
Table of contents
1. Foreword Carsten Rossi ....................................................................................................... 3
2. Background & Idea ............................................................................................................... 4
3. Strategic Considerations ...................................................................................................... 5
3.1. Changing Principles & Underlying Ideas ...................................................................... 6
3.2. Holistic Transformation versus Set of Small Initiatives................................................ 9
3.3. Challenges .................................................................................................................. 10
4. Company Insights and Expert Knowledge ......................................................................... 13
4.1. Pitfalls to Avoid .......................................................................................................... 13
4.2. Knowledge Management (KM) versus E20 ................................................................ 15
4.3. Enhancing the Information Flow ................................................................................ 16
4.4. Improving Internal Communications ......................................................................... 16
4.5. Fostering Knowledge Sharing..................................................................................... 19
4.6. Enriching Knowledge Retention ................................................................................. 20
4.7. Regaining Business Agility .......................................................................................... 21
4.8. Strengthening Collaboration ...................................................................................... 22
4.9. Enforcing Business Innovation ................................................................................... 23
4.10. Improving Talent & Skill Management ...................................................................... 24
5. Adoption Plan & Management .......................................................................................... 27
5.1. Adoption Archetypes & Pattern ................................................................................. 27
5.2. Planning & Organizing Adoption ................................................................................ 27
5.3. Managing Adoption ................................................................................................... 28
6. Summary ............................................................................................................................ 30
7. Author information ............................................................................................................ 33
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1. Foreword Carsten Rossi Instead of a lengthy introduction:
Some questions to myself.
Why are you sponsoring this study?
Because we want to help companies avoid "the endless number of pitfalls (they) are in danger
of stepping in." (See the ideas of Dr. Frank Schönefeld, page 12.)
Why do you think that studies like this are necessary?
Because "education is the key to a successful implementation of E20." (See the explanations
from Luis Suarez from IBM, page 14.)
Why do you give it away for free?
Because "openness is a critical factor for the adoption of Enterprise 2.0." (See the thoughts of
Dr. Thorsten Petry from the Wiesbaden Business School, page 27.)
Why do you invite everybody to distribute this copy to as many people as they know!?
Because E20 is all about "strengthen[ing] information transfer and knowledge sharing." (See the
experiences of Juliette Girard from Renault, page 18.)
What do you hope to achieve by extensively sharing this knowledge?
We want these experiences to "translate 2.0 into real business cases." (See the learnings of Anu
Elmer from SwissRe, page 21.)
Why do you engage in Enterprise and Internal Communications 2.0 at all?
Because our agency’s mission says: "We want to decrease the distance between companies and
their stakeholders."
At the same time, we are enthusiastic evangelists of these concepts because we, as individuals
and as an organization, strive to put them into practice. We live, breathe, and benefit from
these concepts every single day.
Carsten Rossi, May 2011
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2. Background & Idea The Web 2.0 wave has strongly spilled over the corporations' boundaries and created a good
deal of discussions about the way businesses have been managed so far and how they will
evolve in the future. Under the name of Enterprise 2.0 social media has found its way into many
businesses. From many examples we can now see what approaches lead to success. The
mistakes that were made at the beginning do not need to be repeated.
The Enterprise 2.0 SUMMIT 2010 has initiated quite some interesting discussions around the
challenges of good practices for Enterprise 2.0 initiatives and their adoption. Other topics for
discussion are the future setup, the design of the organizations and the forms of leadership
within an Enterprise 2.0 company. In order to share ideas and to improve the overall
exploration of Enterprise 2.0, this report extracts the key ideas and insights from the
conference and further research.
This research document is structured into four chapters: The following chapter discusses the
strategic considerations regarding the setup of the Enterprise 2.0 initiative. This includes the
discussion of principles, the scope and the approach of the initiative as well as the key
challenges of setting up an Enterprise 2.0 project. In the following chapter we summarize the
lessons learned from the discussions of the different use case scenarios at the E20 SUMMIT.
This gives an overview of the different starting points and project emphasizes and their specific
challenges as well as success factors. The third chapter outlines and comments on the
discussions about the adoption of Enterprise 2.0 as the key challenge.
As previously stated, this paper tries to summarize, restructure and share the actual discussions
related to Enterprise 2.0. The study indicates the opinions and experiences of the participants
and other sources. This wealth of experience is complemented by the research that has been
done by N:Sight. It provides a wrapped up snapshot of the common opinions and experiences.
The content has to be seen as a recommendation. Each company has different requirements
that must be considered for the adoption of Enterprise 2.0.
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3. Strategic Considerations Some examples of early case studies in the field of Enterprise 2.0 were marked by a bottom-up,
unintended approach. Nowadays you will find a strong agreement on a more strategic
approach for future initiatives in order to extend the idea towards an Enterprise-wide approach
with a transformable scope for the organization.
For this reason some differences and new insights to the so far accepted beliefs have been
pointed out in regards to the principles of Enterprise 2.0, the strategic approach, the challenges
and pitfalls as well as the differences, the common grounds of Enterprise 2.0 and knowledge
management.
We saw a lot of activities around blogs and wiki’s at the beginning. Collaboration and collecting
knowledge was the main focus. Some of these activities went very well, but some projects led
to great frustration. There are several reasons for that. People did not publish so much at the
web, like they do today at Facebook and Twitter, but more important was the missing
communication element, like you have with networking and micro blogging. These Solutions
are much more in focus than they were before.
Connecting people with a Facebook-like social network or using micro-blogging seems to be the
approach which works better than other Enterprise 2,0 activities. The activity stream provides
the employees with information and gives you the ability to communicate easily. Knowledge
and information is distributed or received more by accident than planned. And that is the key,
because you do not need to think about whether you have knowledge which is important for
the colleagues and needs to be written on a wiki. Other will find these pieces without looking
for them. Or they can ask, if they need support.
However it doesn’t matter which approach a company chooses, it must fit to the needs and
culture of the company. We see some general approaches which work well, but not always.
Therefore this document contains several examples from the Enterprise 2.0 Summit. They show
different use cases and scenarios.
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3.1. Changing Principles & Underlying Ideas
SLATES and FLATNESSES are key mnemonics which described the capabilities and
characteristics of social software and its benefits of use within the corporation at the beginning.
But as the idea of Enterprise 2.0 becomes less technology-centered and more people-centered,
principles have to be reviewed and discussed even more in an outcome-related way.
McAfee's origin SLATES mnemonic
Dion Hinchcliffe created a more refined conception
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When it comes to the key drivers and levers of Enterprise 2.0 the following ideas were heavily
discussed at the Enterprise 2.0 Summit:
● From Discoverability to Serendipity: While both mnemonics emphasize only the
discoverability of information as a key capability of social software, the discussions show
that the key business value for Enterprise 2.0 is hidden beyond the just “search & find”
pattern in the non-intentional discoverability of information. Technologically speaking,
this is realized by the socially created ambient intelligence of social messaging, tagging
or bookmarking that provides relevant and valuable business information “in passing
by”. As serendipity comes from connections, there is a need to maximize the potential
interaction points of people to increase serendipity.
● From Signaling to Sense-Making: While providing new mechanisms to give the the staff
access to more and richer information, the need for the contextual relevance must not
be overlooked. On an individual level social software must improve the daily work of the
staff. On the organizational level the use of social software must support the business
processes. On a management level the initiative must help to introduce and adopt
people to new management models.
● From Emergence to Re-framing: While emergence only describes the arising of new
patterns from the multiplicity of social interactions enabled by social software, the real
business values will be created when used for business improvements and business
innovations. Therefore setting the right business context is the key success factor for
Enterprise 2.0. As seen in the practices discussions about micro sharing and the
innovation approach Enterprise 2.0 initiatives can lead to substantial return on
investments, if it is set into the context of supporting the re-framing process of the
business model.
● From a culture of control to a culture of trust: As transparency opens the information
silos and the decision making context, the idea of controlled governance will be
outpaced by reality. In order to not enter a state of dysfunctional chaos the culture of
control must be superseded by a model of empowered self-responsibility combined
with an assimilated collective mind-set. This said guidelines and principles must be
combined with training and competence building on social media literacy. The new
challenge is to find a gradually incorporated balance between security and privacy to
provide enough transparency and to secure intellectual advantages of the enterprise.
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● From Transition to Operation Mode: While the biggest challenge for today’s Enterprise
2.0 initiative is how to put the organization on track to accept, use and adopt to the new
socially enhanced business routines and processes, the open questions for tomorrow’s
businesses are: What is the constitution of the future organization? What principles are
driving the future business model? What is the role of today’s management ideas and
functions? As most discussions around Enterprise 2.0 are still focused on the acceptance
and benefiting arguments the impact is still limited to its state of infancy.
Supporting the “reframing”….
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3.2. Holistic Transformation versus Set of Small Initiatives
Two models of transformation can be defined towards an Enterprise 2.0 company. On the one
hand the holistic transformation with a top down approach, and on the other a set of small
initiatives with a more bottom-up approach, implementing Enterprise 2.0 in small steps first in
teams and departments.
The Maturity Model
Based on the model of maturity, there are various levels of Enterprise 2.0 which become more
and more mature while they are being set up and developed. In traditional companies social
technology is still in the pilot phase, therefore there is no measurable competitive advantage
gained yet. Next there is a transformation of collaboration happening which leads to a social
technologies integrated enterprise. During and after this period there is a cultural change
proceeding after the technology is integrated into the daily work-life. This leads towards the
adoption into the entire enterprise, a so called participative enterprise. The next step is the
expansion outside of the company, for example open innovation or changing towards more
open enterprise business models. The goals of the whole transformation process are therefore
customer centricity growth opportunities as well as a generally connected enterprise in a
connected society.
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Holistic Transformation
The holistic transformation process is a top down approach which originates from the top-
management of a company. The concept hereby is the full and whole implementation of
Enterprise 2.0 into a company at once, gaining all potential benefits through a breaking change
approach.
Set of small initiatives
Many companies start with a set of small initiatives. At the beginning there are separated
“silos” in the company, which do not or only communicate little with each other. It is good to
integrate other “silos” (Intranet, Internet, communication etc.) into it. So it is more of a soft
shift, with people getting slowly started and slowly feeling comfortable. With more people the
tipping point will be reached and the Enterprise 2.0 initiative will get a push forward.
For both approaches there is to say, that Enterprise 2.0 can be seen as a Trojan mice for
organizational change, starting with small but later impressive changes for the organization.
The approach used will depends on the company, the company culture and the size of the
company as well. But no matter which approach is used, both create quantifiable business
improvements like lower operational costs, increasing networked productivity and higher
business agility.
3.3. Challenges
Strategic Relevance not perceived
It is of high importance, that strategic relevance of Enterprise 2.0 is perceived in a company.
Also, it is necessary to find and choose the right persons and departments to take care of the
whole process establishing Enterprise 2.0. A big problem is if nobody really feels responsible for
the implementation process or the development. The company leaders need to understand
how innovation is driven and that innovation and collaboration are highly correlated. In
addition, it is also part of the organizational development, to find the right place within the
company.
Business Relevance not realized
As Dr. Frank Schönefeld stated that it is hard to measure the ROI of Enterprise 2.0 because
there are many other processes affected or changed in the same period of time.. Therefore it
could at least require some effort to measure the success of Enterprise 2.0. At the same time
there is a perception of the business relevance of Enterprise 2.0 needed. It must be presently
obvious what the process-orientated benefits of Enterprise 2.0 are. Further the management
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needs to understand, that the results of implementing Enterprise 2.0 are not all based on hard-
facts and that cultural and work-life change are part of the transformation process.
Management blocks the process
Implementing Enterprise 2.0 into established companies means to deal with rigid structures
and old management models, as well as traditional ways of thinking. Often these companies are
characterized by a command and control culture, which is also reflected in their corporate
culture itself. It is a problem when a company tries to stick to their old management model and
does not want to change. In addition companies might try to limit the scope of implementing
Enterprise 2.0, because they do not want to lose control. So if a company or management
refuses to change their behavior, they will not be able to realize the benefits of Enterprise 2.0.
People, Process & Technology not aligned
An important challenge is to find the right settings for the various people, processes and
technologies. Difficulties result from insufficient or bad alignments. Not every technology will
work for every company as there are different people with different backgrounds or different
processes which need specific adoptions to the technology. Tools, processes and structures that
will work in a more office oriented department might not fit for a production department.
Conference about Intranet, Collaboration, Document- and Knowledge- Management Seminars
IOM Summit 2011
Frankfurt, 28. and 29. September www.iom-summit.de
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There are many topics which are important for the implementation of software. It is not
different with Enterprise 2.0 solutions. Existing software needs to be connected and the
usability has an influence on the acceptance of the user. Starting with a small user group does
not mean that a solution will also work later with several thousand participants Problems will
be experienced later on, if the results are not properly filtered and do have a good search
function. Therefore it is important to have IT expertise on board.
Adoption & Culture not adjusted
Enterprise 2.0 is not about technology, it is about the culture of people working together and
collaborating. There are cultural issues which has deep impact on Enterprise 2.0. Things like
openness or motivation do have influence how people adopt it. It can be different within a
company depending on country or organizational belonging. In addition there are language
barriers which are a real challenge, especially in Europe.
Depending on where we are from our behavior is different. Hierarchy, autonomy, respect of
rules, willingness to engage in other kinds of relationships at work can differ according to the
local culture and our education. Therefore it is important to be aware of the existing culture
and the cultural change that is caused and wanted by the adoption of Enterprise 2.0.
It is important to select carefully the needed technologies and integrate them into existing
technology. People need some help to understand the tools and the approach behind
Enterprise 2.0. Therefore be aware of teaching and educating your staff using Enterprise 2.0 in
their daily work.
In some companies Enterprise 2.0 is probably not working due to cultural problems. Enterprise
2.0 needs some kind of openness. Especially the top management needs to understand it. It can
work with a bottom-up approach, but it can be stopped by the management when the project
gets some visibility.
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4. Company Insights and Expert Knowledge At the Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2010 in Frankfurt we had some talks with experts on the subject
of Enterprise 2.0. These presentations get in touch with Enterprise 2.0 from different angles.
There are different approaches and lessons learned which helps to understand Enterprise 2.0
adoption. It shows which activities are supporting a successful E 2.0 project and which ones
should be avoided.
First there are some general statements about the adoption of Enterprise 2.0. These
statements will be followed by some insight about E20 cases.
4.1. Pitfalls to Avoid
Dr. Frank Schönefeld talked about the endless number of pitfalls companies are endangered to
step in. In his speech at the Enterprise 2.0 Summit he outlined the 7 most well-known pitfalls
and described them to create awareness for all involved people.
Pitfall 1: Nobody don’t care at all
No one feels responsible to take care of the whole issue of enterprise 2.0. It is important that
someone takes the responsibility for the project. This person needs to understand Enterprise
2.0, especially the cultural aspect and to drive the whole process.
You will find more information about this role at the Enterprise 2.0 manager topic study from
N:Sight.
http://www.slideshare.net/nsightresearch/requirements-e20-manager
Pitfall 2: Do not try to over regulate
Let it happen! Enterprise 2.0 is about freedom and openness. It should offer easy to use tools
and structures. People should use these tools in a creative way. They will find the best way to
use it getting the most benefit for their daily work. Sometimes they need some support or a
smooth push, but in general they should be free to use like they want. It is important for the
success that this basic approach of E20 is not constricted too much.
Pitfall 3: It is not about technology
Even if the cultural aspects are very important, it is equally important to choose the right
technology. So it is important to select carefully the needed technologies and integrate them
into existing technology stacks. Although the barriers are lower, be aware of teaching and
educating the staff of using enterprise 2.0 in their daily work. Today only 4 percent feel very
comfortable and are very familiar with all the functions, 70 percent have just started using it.
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Pitfall 4: It is about culture
It is not, If you see an “open” culture as a precondition. Enterprise 2.0 does affect the culture of
a company, but it is not the main driver. Applications which support the business processes
bring benefit to the people and they will use it. It is about doing your existing workload
cheaper, better and sometimes in a totally new manner, which was not available before.
Pitfall 5: You cannot measure the ROI of it
In other fields of business life, it is hard to measure the ROI of implementing E20 into a
company. It is possible, but like Dr. Schoenfeld said “You can, if you want to: You shouldn´t, but
if you want to - you can.” But in the end of the day you do not measure the value created and
what is actually behind the content.
Pitfall 6: Information overload
Too much information will confuse employees and reduce their productivity. At the beginning
with a few participants and only little content it is normally not a problem, but participants and
content is probably growing fast. It is important to use intelligent filters, establish a suitable
self-discipline of all the involved people and to increase the media competences of your
employees. In other words, train your staff for the new tools and the new approach for their
daily work-life.
Pitfall 7: Enterprise 2.0 is the Holy Grail
Like Dion Hinchcliffe stated with enterprise 2.0 we’ve found the Holy Grail for everything in the
organization, but maturity is also to be seen as the ability to collaborate within the company.
Being aware of the fact, that enterprise 2.0 is just an approach to optimize communication and
the exchange of knowledge is of high importance.
Additional challenges
In addition to these seven pitfalls, Rob Howard, CTO and founder of Telligent, emphasizes the
importance of aligning online social communities with a company’s business objectives. He
stated that social software is a strategic, scalable way to engage customers while recognizing
and rewarding them for their participation. Successful companies, such as Microsoft, Dell, and
Starbucks leverage social communities to promote brand loyalty, support open innovation, and
increase revenue
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For Luis Suarez of IBM education is the key for a successful implementation of E20. It is not just
important to know how to use the tools right, it is also important to change the behaviors of
the staff. It is more different to write and email than a blog. Another point concerns security,
some companies might want to implement guidelines for blogging and messaging.
4.2. Knowledge Management (KM) versus E20
Jenny Ambrozek from SageNet LLC described the dispute between Knowledge Management
and Enterprise 2.0 as a kind of cultural war. So it is necessary to have a look behind the curtain
and to break things down to their roots. Like Simon Dückert (Cogneon) described, first
management was all about hierarchy and knowledge management changed this perception.
So like Luis Suarez said in his presentation, in the last seven years there was a transformation of
Knowledge Management into something different. The Management part of KM is kind of dead,
because it is almost impossible to manage something you do not know, but the knowledge part
is not. And this knowledge part is one of the key points of enterprise 2.0, because at the end of
the day both ideas have the same overall intention, to improving how people work.
The fundamental idea of Enterprise 2.0 is to create value through interaction between people.
It is based on participation. That means people need to be engaged and are contributing. In
contrast to KM where key people within the enterprise predefine the relevant knowledge that
is valuable for the company, in a enterprise 2.0 approach this “work” is done by the employee,
using the wisdom of crowds theory. People are not aware that they are creating knowledge for
the company. It is done more by accident.
Therefore companies and employees have to leave the old way of thinking to control their
knowledge, to control people. Enterprise 2.0 will guide to a learning organization. Like Luis
Suarez mentioned during his presentation, “to persuade people that I am an expert, I have to
talked to them, argued, shared knowledge and learned with them.”
Furthermore he reminded that the approach of KM was ruined and that we might be making
the same mistakes again. Technology is the solution, but you have to build it around people.
People really want to share, so you have to give them the possibility to do it. They should be
able to help each other and be recognized.
In Summary, looking at the results of the discussion after the presentation, it can be said that
KM and E2.0 do not fit. Even though KM and E20 share the same goals they use different
approaches, have different socialization and different values. It is more important that the
people come together and work on the challenges of tomorrow.
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The challenge will be to rethink every function in the business, like human resource and
innovation for example, where a new culture has to be created.
4.3. Enhancing the Information Flow
How can you encourage informal information flow within your corporation to support your
business objectives? Dietmar Zipfel from T-Systems shared his experience in knowledge sharing
at the Enterprise 2.0 Summit.
T-Systems decided to use an internal micro blogging system, because the communication
should take place behind the firewall. The whole implementation process is running bottom up,
presenting showcases for the management.
In contrast to the person driven approach of Twitter, T-System decided to use a topic driven
micro blogging solution. Limited input fields are used to keep the status messages short and
concisely. There is an exchange with wiki read & write permission as well as Wiki integration
with a lot of customizing parameters like location based tags.
Micro blogging is often used in projects, teams, departments and internal conferences for
online comments. People use it because it is very easy to understand. Everything is just two
mouse clicks away. It can be integrated immediately into running discussions and late joiners
are able to see the whole story. The reasons people back off using it is that there is actually no
approval by the workers council. Since there is no public usage of Micro blogs allowed yet, it
has only been tested in closed groups so far. There is no surveillance that reads the information
at an exact point in time exactly, so the fear of noticing information too late rises.
The vision is to integrate micro blogging into the desktop as well as into personal profiles of the
internal social network. A mobile access to the internal network is also planned. The next step
here fore will be to convince the workers council to overcome the legal boundaries within the
company since E 2.0 has an image problem due to Web 2.0. (In the meantime, the council
agreed)
4.4. Improving Internal Communications
How can internal communications be supported and improved by social software? Kornelia Kis
from The Boston Consulting Group and Samuel Driessen from Oce shared their experiences and
lessons learned.
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The situation at The Boson Consulting Group Marketing Department was a global network of 74
offices in 42 countries with more than 10 different time zones and intensive communication
between the 3 pillars of marketing: Editorial, Global Marketing and Local/Regional Marketing.
Outlook based global communication was completed by the adoption of IT tools like Intranet,
SharePoint and a companywide social software; but instead of helping, these rather caused
problems and resulted into a “communication spaghetti” with many inefficiencies. Compared to
the previous investments, the usages of the new platforms, such as Mindshare, were not
meeting expectations.
To solve this problem and to improve internal communication BCG Marketing’s “mPoint” was
created, bringing communication together into a centralized virtual office space with three
dimensions in regard to the three pillars of marketing. One dimension based on tasks, the
second on the floor plan so people can find each other and the third based on regions,
interests, type of content and functions. Regarding the type of content, there are news,
policies, guidelines, events, expert search and discussions available.
Today people are more and more active sharing their ideas across the world. You have to
choose the software best fitting to your needs and you found the right one when you feel that
your creativity is at the limit. “Less is more” – Optimize your platform to your target
community, instead of maximizing functionality. Integrate your platform into your working
process, allocate your efforts wisely and not underestimate usual pitfalls during the change
process.
The idea of having communities cross functional makes a structured approach easier for the
people using the tools. There are so many processes that have to be transparent. Building a
floor plan is the only way to bring everybody together without that happening. So other
departments will soon take over the “mPoint” approach as well. The approach used by BCG was
top down.
---------
Oce uses Yammer as a tool for micro blogging. There is a big need of horizontal communication
within the organization and they are focusing on the formal structured business/information
processes. Yet Oce has a general interest as well as existing experience in E2.0 and Social media
while focusing on how these two fields interact with Business Process Information.
Starting in rough economic times in 2008 as a bottom up approach the first focus was on results
and learning points. Today 2000 people use Yammer realizing that this could change the way
they communicate. The tool has also been used in a chemical manufacturing plant within a very
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structured environment to improve horizontal and vertical communication in order to speed up
lean time.
It is difficult to have reliable figures for success, like money or the improvement of productivity.
Most of the soft facts are leading to it, but it is difficult to measure. They play an important role.
In order to get people to use the tool training is essential. Do not just assume that people will
use it. Moderation is the key. It is a community and will not work without.
There are wikis installed as well. They are good for information processes, not useful for dialog.
So people are starting to bring structure in the different tools, e.g. starting to link to more
detailed wiki information in their micro blogging status updates. Regarding security concerns
due to the use of the free version of Yammer a Security Officer was involved. There will be a
switch to the paid version soon.
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4.5. Fostering Knowledge Sharing
How can you strengthen information transfer and knowledge sharing via social networking?
This case by Juliette Girard, Web 2.0 Program Manager at Renault, discusses successful
approaches to knowledge management at the Enterprise 2.0 Summit.
Renault already has a culture of e-collaboration developed since 2003 with 50,000 users, 8,000
virtual working spaces and 20.000 Web conferences per month. So sharing knowledge is
already a key success factor in the company. They belief that Web 2.0 is an ongoing revolution
with the question how does the corporate culture change if social tools get implemented? So
the question is not „to go or not to go“, but „how to go?“
In 2008 it was possible to go for a big solution. It started when the COO went to Davos to meet
a professor who wrote a book on Web 2.0 and made him aware of the subject. After that a
study was developed on opportunities & risks of Web 2.0. The aim was to have one common IT-
Platform and to capitalize the experience on the usage to help people with their daily work. It
was possible to spread out the Web 2.0 culture towards a successful Web 2.0 strategy building
a strong change management culture. The vision of Renault 2.0 is to inform and have dialog
through blogs, wikis, tweets, intranet, forums and more, to share and innovate as well as
develop collaboration through innovation jams and to build networks in form of online
communities. In order to do that the behavior of employees need to be changed.
Step by step they launched small business communities of six to a hundred people. After that
the project went global. So everybody could start building social networks and communities.
Some KPI’s were defined to measure the activities. Everything has been tried out in a controlled
environment without training for specific user, but they trained the community managers.
These people need to know how to act and react upon certain requests.
The opportunity of using social tools is the development of social links, receiving recognition,
employee motivation and commitment but what are the main Web 2.0 applications for Renault
2.0?:
● Publish & Dialogue
● Network
● Collaborate
● Innovate
There are three examples of how Web 2.0 is used at Renault. Within the department of sales
the integration of new colleagues now happens more easily by simplifying access to the needed
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information. In the Women@Renault community which developed within the company,
women are able to boost their careers through sharing and making suggestions and on the B2B
level the possibility for vendors was created to share experience and knowledge.
4.6. Enriching Knowledge Retention
How can you manage the communication within a consultancy arm of Bertelsmann AG, where
people often work at the customer? Dr. Martin Wünsch and Carsten Ripper from Bertelsmann
AG shared their experience with the implementation of the just.connect platform.
Bertelsmann is an international media company encompassing television, book publishing,
magazine publishing, media services and media clubs in more than 50 countries with more than
100.000 employees worldwide. Established as a spin-off from the Corporate Financial Reporting
division Bertelsmann Business Consulting (BeBC) reports directly to the CFO and remains a
wholly-owned subsidiary of the Group. After many years of managing customers within the
Bertelsmann Group, Bertelsmann Business Consulting will now focus increasingly on external
customers as a special provider of consulting services in the areas of reporting and
consolidation. During the dynamically growing consulting business BeBC recognized the need to
manage communication challenges by developing a system that allows the sharing of
knowledge within the company overcoming cultural boundaries.
So Bertelsmann AG decided to implement Enterprise 2.0 based on a pilot for BeBC’s consulting
business. As technical solution Bertelsmann selected the platform just.connect from Just
Software AG.
The aim was to create an interactive communication and cooperation platform across internal
and external project teams, including customers as well as consulting partners. Without being
bound to geographical or hierarchical restrictions staff should be enabled to communicate and
organize themselves in different sub-groups to exchange knowledge resp. experience topics.
Inefficient email traffic should be replaced by open communication and collaboration.
Even as the system is not fully integrated into the company today, there are several learning’s
discovered. A Facebook like web 2.0 approach fosters the acceptance especially by the younger
people in the company. What’s more, new employees have a good chance to get in contact
with other staff and can easily get an overview about any ongoing project.
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4.7. Regaining Business Agility
How can we increase business agility of corporations by using social software? Dr. CheeChin
Liew from BASF showed improvements on business processes.
The increasing speed in product development cycles at BASF requires different communication
skills and tools. BASF is a people-oriented organization changing from hierarchies & teams to
ever-growing networked formal as well as informal communities. To support this process the
global platform Connect.BASF for internal knowledge sharing, networking and collaboration
was introduced.
It started out with a steering committee on that topic with a board member as sponsor. The
showcase was demonstrated in form of presentations and demos on special events as well as in
forums. During the launch phase there was a focus on IT implementation, but it is an ongoing
project. Today for example there are connect.BASF days with external, inspiring speakers doing
a lot of demoing and presenting. Consulting is also part of the job, helping departments/groups
understand e2.0 and use tools. Up to the pilot phase BASF had 1000 users.
From that point BASF stopped project communication. Five months later there are more than
15.500 participants. There is no central control and support is done by the evangelists. BASF's
communities grew emergently. "Don't coach them from the beginning" says Dr. CheeChin Liew.
You have to keep the engagement up with a system that works for your needs. The benefits are
that employees can present themselves and be visible (profiles), build up & strengthen network
ties (communities), find experts (tags), share knowledge (blogs), work together (files & wikis).
The communities resent as an emergent structure like following:
● U4O: experts & professions (expertise)
● U4U: social networking (interest)
● O4O: projects & working teams (practice)
● O4U: initiatives & services (dialogue)
One success story is that micro blogging has been used for exchanging studies, adding other
studies, so that the marketing manager can share this info professionally with the whole team.
The second success story is that employees feel connected in an hour of need through a blog
for a donation in Pakistan. Employees could follow the amount of donation and promote a 2nd
stage for helping people in need. The five basic highlights are:
© N:Sight Research GmbH 22
● People-oriented and voluntary character
● Visible commitment from top management
● Leadership by advocates and community builders
● Transfer of communications and workflows
● Sharing of benefits and success stories
4.8. Strengthening Collaboration
In September 2009 Swiss Re went live with an internal collaboration platform. Swiss Re is a
knowledge and expertise intensive business which is getting more and more complex with
customers looking for tailor made solutions. The geographically dispersed teams have a strong
need for collaboration.
The implementation kicked off a lot of changes in the company. Anu Elmer, core team member
of the initiative, stated that “in order for you to go out and swim in the ocean you first have to
learn how to swim in the lake“, implying that it makes sense to learn how to use new
technologies and work in a different way first inside the company.
The collaboration platform is based on Jive SBS. The first groups to emerge on the platform
were groups formed around key customers to foster cooperation between different client
teams around the globe. The big variety of communities also includes several innovation groups
and learning groups such as the Leadership Development Program.
The company has a strong collaborative culture which provided a strong foundation for the
platform. Nevertheless, employees needed inspiration and role models to understand how to
use the new technology and what were its benefits. The goals of the platform included
supporting virtual and asynchronous teamwork, sharing information and knowledge, getting
more agile and responsive resulting in faster innovation processes and solution capabilities. Last
but not least, the platform was to foster a more dialogue-centric and engaging company
culture.
Swiss Re E 2.0 team is of the opinion that in order to initiate an Enterprise 2.0 change you need
to have a business need first and then choose the right technology to adapt to it, not the other
way round. For a change of this kind a very strong legitimation from different stakeholders is
needed. A grass root approach without management support possibly would not gain enough
momentum or could be aborted. Swiss Re therefore combined a top down support with a
bottom up initiative. In order to develop business relevant use cases and community
management skills they started looking for advocates who could translate 2.0 into real business
cases. The change management approach mostly relied on viral peer level promotion.
© N:Sight Research GmbH 23
Furthermore, focus was put on providing an integrated platform supporting daily activities and
on recruiting advocates from core business functions as role models. Another important insight
was the need to to synchronize the change with business needs and company readiness.
Swiss Re’s approach for implementation was to “go small and start fast” – the core team
consisted of 5 people from different units. A pilot run for three months and resulted in
business-relevant content being already available upon rollout and the users immediately
seeing the directs benefits of the platform. After one year the platform became an integral part
of the company with 12.000 users of which 85 % actively participate. 15 % of them create
content, the rest replies, comments and asks questions. The users include members of top
management who join discussions, create blogs and share their ideas.
Today there are around 500 out of 700 very active and vibrant communities. Every community
has their own community manager. They are coached on how to successfully lead a community.
People look for advice, contacts and experts. In order to get even more out of the platform and
the emerging communities it is crucial to coach the community managers and give them official
recognition for their work, e.g. through setting up an annual community award.
4.9. Enforcing Business Innovation
How can we enhance business innovation processes with social software? Stephan Oertelt from
BMW and Alessandra Pelagallo from Telecom Italia discussed different social media approaches
to enforce business innovation.
The innovation platform "Red Square" at BMW represents a virtual market place, a melting pot
for different elements, be it ideas, concepts, or the users of the platform. This creates a basis
from which develops a platform for communication, action and interactive exchange. Red
Square serves as a catalyst for the emergence of new ideas and concepts and expands
inspiration in all directions through the variety which is offered.
These thoughts lead to the first basic idea of the Red Square philosophy, namely openness,
freedom and transparency. In Red Square, it should be possible to allow everything, to take in
all ideas, to promote diversity, so that from this tension and energy, innovation can arise.
Creativity and innovation are only possible if an adequate platform is provided, which is
accessible and free to all and open to diversity. This platform is created and offered through
Red Square.
All employees of the BMW Group have access to this collective knowledge, are able to discuss it
and further develop themselves and thus achieve an optimum. The idea of networking leads to
© N:Sight Research GmbH 24
the next element of the Red Square philosophy. The platform is designed to resemble
a living organism, a growing system that is not controlled from outside, but with development
and dynamics in itself. This is achieved by both content structures (ideas and concepts), and
such structures which emerge between the participants (formation of groups, interest
groups and associations) which are formed.
At Telecom Italia the whole E.20 project is called the Archimede project with the basic function
of collecting ideas from 200.000 employees. When the Open Access was formed there were
20.000 people from different backgrounds, different jobs and skills. The whole idea was a
bottom up suggestion to enhance business processes.
The goals were to involve the targeted 20.000 Open Access Employees and let them define
topics around idea and knowledge sharing with Archimede as the 2.0 evolution of ideas. In
Archimede you can post comments, ideas, suggestions, invitations and you can create groups.
The result has been 2.500 ideas, 6.000 unique visitors, 15.000 accesses and 792 comments
moving from an unstructured system to a structured one by Homogeneity as well as the
evolution of teams and clusters on ideas. A grading matrix has been additionally installed with
the three dimensions Quality, Efficiency and Transparency. There is a full feedback support for
all participants as well.
The outcomes for the company are benefits from projects, action plans, idea implementation
and an organized knowledge system for new start ups. The impact on the implementation of
ideas can be seen as well.
The lessons learned are to work even more on the brand awareness, give more feedback, look
for more top manager’s commitment, involve people and see 2.0 as an opportunity to get
better idea with a bottom up approach while focusing on strategic business topics.
4.10. Improving Talent & Skill Management
How do talent and skill management practices change with the emerging social software?
Franck La Pinta from Societe Generale and Ellen Trude from Bayer Business Services gave
insights into their projects.
Enterprise 2.0 is an opportunity to propose a new social agreement in order to promote new
skills in relationship, cooperation, collaborative approach in the way of working. At the end of
the day, Enterprise 2.0 can be a new model of reference. Enterprise 2.0 provides new
© N:Sight Research GmbH 25
information about employee’s competencies and skills to HR or it is an option for a better
match of competencies, employee’s expectations and internal needs.
The situation at Societe Generale regarding the external environment is tougher legal
framework, a high technicality, low growth and a war for talents. With HR 2.0 the brand is
replaced by your reputation. The online presence is an element of the offer and therefore a
criterion of choice. In order to develop an attractive employer brand you have to facilitate
sourcing and recruitment. Today, the relation between job seekers and companies is totally
impacted by the new behaviors affected by social networks.
The HR 2.0 ecosystem meanwhile exists of e.g. wikis and blogs for job descriptions, for
recruiting or for career paths. Four main objectives structure the presence on „ the outer belt“:
● Focused targeting
● Discussions
● Exchanges
● Relays of our brand
You have to be open and approachable, accept an equal relation, take part in the eco system,
listen and explain more than attempt as well as being proximate and modest.
In order to start an Enterprise 2.0 initiative you have to first build up Social Media Competences
within the company says Ellen Trude from Bayer Business Services. Offer a workshop or an
information presentation about your own experience and ways of using Web 2.0. But in order
to do that you have to define the target group and targets first.
The idea behind “Enjoy Social Media” is to provide the users with enough Social Media
competences so that they can act upon independently in the Web 2.0 environment. Therefore a
Social Media Skill Matrix with the three layers “Knowledge”, “Skill” and “Approach” has been
developed, the project got approved and the budget provided in order to build a learning
environment designed through workshops.
Social Media Education at Bayer formally consists of a Project competences Matrix, a learning
environment, workshops and customized solutions as well as presentations. The learning
environment consists hereby of the curriculum, standards for the „virtual trainers“ and the
platform itself. There are 5 different learning steps separated into 2 different levels (Discoverer
& Explorer). The learning steps are:
© N:Sight Research GmbH 26
● Watch User Generated Content
● Join User Generated Content
● Collect & Share User Generated Content
● Critic User Generated Content
● Create User Generated Content
There are specific assignments to be fulfilled at each level for the participant with the
Discoverer Level taking up to about 20 hours of time and the Explorer Level up to about 50
hours. The course is kept general for everyone and not specified to certain job positions so
people can find out on their own how to use Social Media for their specific job purposes best.
The project has so far been established with several project partners working on technically
setting up the learning environment in the “mixxt” community platform, developing online
sessions and training the moderators on how to facilitate and lead the participants through the
program. Additional partners are concerned with the facts of setting up resources for the
learning environment in order to make it easier for the participants to follow through the
assignments. The role out of the learning environment is supposed to happen this year. (The
learning environment is active now)
© N:Sight Research GmbH 27
5. Adoption Plan & Management
5.1. Adoption Archetypes & Pattern
In their presentation of “Exploring the Adaption Archetypes” Alexander Stocker and Alexander
Richter described their developed pattern of understanding of enterprise 2.0.
Out of their research about the adoption of Social Software they developed a grounded theory
approach which led to two different archetypes. The presentation is based on a study of best
practice cases and is a result of the evaluation of these cases.
First, there is the archetype of exploration.
It is specified through a continuously identifying process of feasible usage scenarios for IT-
services which are suitable for any use. Here, the potentials are often not clear in the forehand;
the implementation is part of the exploring process and can be seen as a learning process with
a bottom-up approach.
Second, there is the archetype of promotion
This archetype is specified through a coordinated communication and a targeted training of IT-
services with the focus on certain modes of use. In contrast to the archetype of exploration,
there are clear expectations on how to use it. The decisions are made by the management,
which have envisioned a specific use case with a certain goal for using these tools. Therefore it
can be said, that this archetype is common in a top down approach.
As they stated, these two archetypes are found combined in some of the company. Some
started with the bottom-up approach like the first archetype and changed later on to the top
down approach. An adoption of both, exploration first and switching to promotion seems to be
a successful way.
5.2. Planning & Organizing Adoption
Luis Suarez from IBM set up 5 conceptual stages of an adoption process. In stage one the value
of enterprise 2.0 must be discovered and learned. The possibilities of this approach must be
clear. In the second step, it is necessary to recognize the use for business. How can it be used to
support process with the most benefit? The third stage is the “all together”-approach. People
must learn to work together and have to internalize the benefits of enterprise 2.0. Step four is
to set up integrative workshops to further establish the culture of enterprise 2.0 in the
company. In the fifth stage there will be a shift in the perspective, the culture of enterprise 2.0
is installed and all the benefits of enterprise 2.0 can be received.
© N:Sight Research GmbH 28
There are different levels of maturity within the company. In the road ahead, change
management is a big issue, because change of behavior takes time.
5.3. Managing Adoption
Critical success factors and key findings
In his presentation Prof. Dr. Thorsten Petry from Wiesbaden Business School spoke about
critical success factors for the adoption process of enterprise 2.0. Openness is a critical factor
for the adoption of Enterprise 2.0. Especially management has to be open as a role model.
Enterprise 2.0 works best with a mixture of bottom-up and top-down approach.
Another critical success factor is the definition of clear responsibilities. Clear and central
responsibility for the topic is often missing in companies. Also the corporate management is
rarely in the driver seat of the implementing process. This leads to the third critical success
factor the maintenance of control of the implementation process. If the management or the
responsible department loses the maintenance of control, the process will stagnate and the
whole approach is in danger to fail.
Cécile Demailly gave an overlook to possible early strategies how change can happen towards
enterprise 2.0 and stated three key findings.
1. give it sense
2. make it balanced
3. sustain the change cycle
First, one has to think about what best fits the company and its culture. It is necessary to be
aware of the fact that technology is also important, but it is not only technology. The
organizational level has to support the strategic vision and the change must help on the daily
work, so that people accept the implementation and changes in their workplace. And also the
management level must support the new management model. It is important to find a good
balance between the different parts.
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According to Cécile Demailly there are four distinct phases to sustain the change cycle:
Phases 1: Awakening the focus on connecting the change towards enterprise 2.0 with the
organizational culture and strategy.
Phase 2: Envisioning the approach of enterprise 2.0. Pick up an apprentice, start with a test
phase and set up the change governance. Also in this phase you start to recruiting early
adopters to develop a working structure.
Phase 3: Re-architecting. Now it is necessary to put the tools together and make them work
well for you staff. Also people should be able to try it out.
Phase 4: Leveraging and stretching. Learn from the input of your users and overwork the
structure and tools. The goal is to create an intuitive structure with tools that are needed and
wanted.
www.e20-summit.de
European Conference about
Enterprise 2.0
Expert Talks
and Praxis Cases
Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2011
www.e20-summit.de Paris, 16. - 18. November
© N:Sight Research GmbH 30
6. Summary Early times of Enterprise 2.0 are gone. Now companies are presenting their cases based on a
maturity level. At the beginning many Enterprise 2.0 initiatives started as grass root projects.
Enterprise 2.0 was new and it was simply trial and error, the destiny of early adopters.
Sometimes the management was involved, but mostly it was just done by a department or a
team driven by web 2.0 evangelists. Some of these projects “infected” the whole company and
changed the way people work together. Some of the projects just died or stagnated. Companies
learned from these experience and we can determine an Enterprise 2.0 maturity now.
There are two major approaches which can be seen at successful Enterprise 2.0 projects. You
can find a holistic approach, driven by the top management, and a set of small initiatives driven
by a bottom-up approach. Both can lead to a successful Enterprise 2.0 adoption.
The holistic approach is driven by the management and the goals are set. Ideally, a team was
appointed which accompanies the whole process. Everything can be prepared before you start
with Enterprise 2.0. It is recommended to start with an open project communication, as a good
example for the way Enterprise 2.0 is working. It is also a good way of finding evangelists. They
will start to comment early. Probably it is good to invite them as team member. It is better to
have enthusiastic team member than having a team of people who are member, because it part
to their job role.
But even with a holistic approach it is a good approach to start with small projects and testing
the tools. These small projects can be done more easily than to do the same in the entire
company. Failures do not have the same impact and you can start with departments or
business units which see Enterprise 2.0 as a good tool to support them. Other can learn from
these good examples and you will get an organic growing which can be pushed by the project
team. But at some companies it is better start with the whole company.
The bottom-up approach has been tested with positive results. With many of the Enterprise 2.0
tools also small teams will recognize benefits for their daily work very soon. Otherwise you do
not probably see the whole picture. There are only the benefits for this group in focus. It is
recommended to have at least the backing of one or more members of the top management.
Otherwise there is a risk that the project will be stopped when getting awareness. Many
© N:Sight Research GmbH 31
companies changed from the bottom-up approach to the top-down, after the first projects
were done successfully and the management saw the benefits.
There is a big discussion on whether it is important to see the entire company or using flexible
solutions which addresses teams and organizational units. Generally it seems that the holistic
top-down approach is the better one, but it must fit to the company culture.
There are some discussions as well whether there is a need to have an open minded culture
starting with Enterprise 2.0. That means some kind of “E20 readiness”. It will be difficult to
changing the culture without tools which allows transparency and to give employees a voice.
It sounds like a hen and egg problem, but it is not. Generally you should start with Enterprise
2.0, because that is the way people will change their behavior. They will learn to communicate
and collaborate. It will change the way people work together. So every Enterprise 2.0 project
will be a change project. This needs to be clear at the beginning and it needs to be handled like
any other change management project.
In a company with a very strong hierarchical thinking and a top management which forbids any
intervention of staff you should think about Enterprise 2.0 carefully. It will be definitely a tough
project than with the good possibility to fail. It needs at least certain openness and a willingness
to respond to demands of employees. You can’t provide a comment function and invite
employees for example and just work than before as you didn’t hear the voice of your staff.
They won’t comment any more and your project is dead. So it’s not really necessary to have an
Enterprise 2.0 culture at the beginning, but you should know the culture of your company
before you start.
Whatever approach you choose, you need to define a clear responsibility. Someone needs to
push and control the project. Not everything needs to be done by this person, but someone
need to take care. This isn’t different from any other project.
Read more at the Enterprise 2.0 manager study:
http://www.slideshare.net/nsightresearch/requirements-e20-manager
The discussion about Enterprise 2.0 moved to a more culture driven discussion, because it
affects the culture of a company and it is working only, if you take care about the motivation of
the employees. Some people are supporting the opinion “it is all about culture”, but that’s not
true. The Enterprise 2.0 solutions need to fit into the company. It needs to be integrated into
the IT landscape. The tools should have a good usability. It helps to keep the barrier low. People
will use the tool only, if they can easily use it and if they are getting the information which
© N:Sight Research GmbH 32
supports their work. Probably, it is helpful to run a usability test, especially when the Enterprise
2.0 applications are integrated into an existing Intranet, for example.
For some tools, like Wiki’s for example, it is not recommended to start with an empty version.
People need at least some examples to understand how it works. It is also a problem for people
to be the first to create content. It is a good approach to go through the existing tools for
content which can be moved. By doing this, you will find relevant content for the Wiki which
does not need to be created again. You should not forget to update it and remove it from the
old resource. Otherwise you will have the same content at two places and you will get two
versions of it after some time.
At the beginning of Enterprise 2.0 many people thought it was user generated content and you
did not need to take care. This is not the case. People need advice and support, thus if the tools
are very easy to use. In small companies it can be done centralized. In bigger companies or
groups you need to do it via community managers. These people need to be well trained and
need a central support, if they have problems.
Communication from the beginning of a project is important as well. Employees need to be
involved. So that it is easier to motivate them. Using Enterprise 2.0 tools like a blog or micro-
blogging is a good role model as well.
It is not a bad decision, to install a steering committee for the project. At least one member
should be somebody out of the top management. You will get the right awareness and the
decisions will be valid. It is also good for your own resume.
The benefits of Enterprise 2.0 have been shown in many projects. One must make sure that the
right elements are chosen that fit to the company and its culture. Allow Enterprise 2.0 some
independent development. Not every use case can be seen at the beginning, but the employees
will find it. It is also advantageous to show good examples for the use of Enterprise 2.0.
We know a lot about the Enterprise 2.0 adoption nowadays, but you need to be sensitive about
the corporate culture. Not everything works for every company.
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7. Author information Author: Joachim Lindner
Joachim Lindner has more than 13 years experience in marketing and communications. For
most of that time he dealt with the subject of online communication. Many successful intranet
and enterprise 2.0 projects form the basis of his experience.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/JoachimL
Many thanks for the research assistance to Milos Vujnovic and Tobias Brenner
The study was published under the Creative Common license. The content can be used
completely or in parts by naming the author.
Enterprise 2.0 adoption from N:Sight Research GmbH is under a Creative Commons
Namensnennung 3.0 Unported Lizenz.
© N:Sight Research GmbH 34
The study is a product of the:
N:Sight Research GmbH
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81541 München
About N:Sight Research GmbH
N:Sight Research GmbH is an independent research and consulting firm based in Munich.
N:Sight publishes studies and professional information on the topics internet, intranet,
knowledge management, Enterprise 2.0 and social web. N:Sight analyzes best practice
scenarios and tools with empirical and qualitative methods.
In addition to studies, N:Sight also provides seminars and strategic business consulting on the
basis of the research results. N: Sight Research GmbH is a subsidiary of the Kongress Media
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