Interesting story on Business Week about the difficulty of encouraging the use of collaborative web tools in the corporate workplace.
“The reason why blogs and wikis, in particular, aren’t well used is that companies are still afraid,” he posits. “How do you basically regulate how to contribute?” He also thinks the wisdom of crowds isn’t always sharp and that companies are worried about getting bad information on a collaborative document, such as a wiki.
Another barrier to embracing blogs and wikis: Bughin points out that in a knowledge economy where companies remain hierarchical in structure, knowledge is power. If workers put their most precious information in a wiki, their status within their organization could be threatened. “The problem is that people with heavy knowledge tend to keep that for themselves, because that’s the way they define their job,” says Bughin. “Put it in a wiki and everyone has it.” If he’s right, companies serious about embracing these collaborative technologies will need to find a new incentive system for employees.
Companies, in their current configuration, are doomed!
Why? Information wants to be free. It flows out of companies in the form of blog posts, comments, metadata, tags. And with it flows people, ideas and new opportunities; opportunities that big companies are too cumbersome to seize.
