Use of Web2.0 technologies in the work place

The debate on Web2.0 technologies and whether they are a useful tool or a distraction and a waste of valuable working time is on-going. Marc and I have talked in the past about the importance of integrating these types of approaches into the workplace, considering the preferences of the 2012 generation. After all, facebook and wikis are part of their day to day life anyway. My colleague Scott McArthur http://mcarthursrant.blogspot.com/ contributes his views to this interesting article from Personnel Today on the topic. http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/article.aspx?liarticleid=43764&printerfriendly=true

What do you do? Ban it? Use it? T-mobile opted for the second route, incorporating Facebook and recruitment successfully. The publishing company Informa use their 'Transformed Careers Island' to allow employees access information about job functions, competencies, skills gap - as well as play football. Whichever camp you belong to, one thing is for sure: blanket approaches are unlikely to provide the answer, so what could these technologies can do for your organisation now and in the future?

Wikinomics in Action at MIT

Last night I attended a post graduate lecture given by Professor Eric von Hippel at the Sloan School of Management at MIT. He was talking about the challenge of breakthrough innovation compared to that of incremental improvement. It was fascinating and engaging stuff. He talked about new models of user co-creation. Later on, I decided to revisit my roots and attend some under grad lectures on Electrical and Mechanical engineering. Professor Lester Walker of MIT gave a great performance explaining why I am lighter when travelling down in an elevator and heavier when the elevator takes me up a few floors.

Okay - so what's the deal? You've probably guessed that I was attending these lectures remotely. I was in the UK watching videos of these MIT guys in action. I also downloaded all the lecture notes, mid term papers and model answers. So what...

What stopped my in my tracks is that since 2002, MIT has published 1,800 courses from its under graduate and post graduate programmes absolutely free of charge on the internet.

MIT's OpenCourseWare (OCW) programme appears to be a living embodiment of Don Tapscott's ideas in his 2004 book Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. One of the finest educational establisments in the world is happily sharing the content of nearly all of it's faculties courses. All of that intellectual capital is now available free of charge to every citizen in the world who can access the internet. MIT actively encourage other establishments to use their material to assist and shape their curriculum. Individuals can self teach or enrich their current studies. High schools can create lesson plans that prepare students for college.

And that, of course, is what Wikinomics is all about. What you share and give out for free - you will get back more in the long run. MIT will no doubt get more applications from potential students because of this initiative. OCW will extend their academic network and get all sorts of people collaborating together. MIT are also attracting sponsorship for OCW thus creating a new income stream.

But don't take my word for it - look at the site on http://ocw.mit.edu/