As I said in an earlier post about Web 2.0, I believe the most powerful and compelling aspect of the so-called Web 2.0 phenomenon is the “architecture of participation.” And companies are realizing this and building their own internal web application built upon individuals contributing content. For example, today's Wall Street Journal has an article about social software and how many companies are re-inventing web-based social tools for their own corporate intranets.

WSJ, 9/12/06: Offices Co-Opt Consumer Web Tools Like 'Wikis' and Social Networking

This trend is interesting for a couple reasons:

  • This is a sign that the centrally-organized corporate intranet is going away.
  • The reason the intranet can go away is that individuals across an organization at all levels are supplying their own information to the web of corporate information. The important thing to note though is that they are doing this because it is the easiest place to put the information for their own personal use! Just like Google's gmail, calendar and spreadsheet tools, company-sponsored web-based tools can actually be easier and better than your desktop tools. And the end-result is that the company's intelligence is now stored in a centralized location, accessible by everyone, rather than on each person's machine (or worse, only in their head).
  • There is no longer an approval process for getting things published on the company's internal site. I think this is because of two factors. First, these applications are being set-up and used at the grassroots level, not the top management, so the typical approvers are not in the original install loop. Second, each person who contributes content to the web has their name attached to each piece of data they contribute. This mitigates the risk the company will be blamed for mis-information. Ideally, correct information will emerge through collective intelligence.
  • Social networking goes beyond MySpace and LinkedIn to actually getting work done. I am a believer in using social network tools for forging within-organzation contacts and the article mentions that quite a few companies are using these networked applications to make connections between knowledge workers.