Mike Gotta rightly points out that there is more to the story than what I said in the 5 minute outtake from my panel on Enterprise 2.0:
A quick video snippet from the conference can be found below (enjoyable to watch over morning coffee). Some comments:
Ross makes a point on "enterprise 2.0 tools" changing organizational culture. While there is clearly an co-relationship between tools and cultural change, tools themselves do not change culture. You can throw blogs out there and see them succeed or fail - there is no defacto guarantee of cultural change. Cultural change does not rest with technology alone - other methods and practices that address organizational dynamics are equally (I would argue more) important. Change is a complex choreography and as new ways of doing things takes shape, new tools are one facet of that emergence. So tools can indeed help enable all types of transformation (expected and unexpected), but there is no silver bullet, you need to do more than deploy technology.
I think Mike knows how I (and Socialtext) value practices as a more than necessary condition for deriving value from tools. But I'll also make one argument, about how the change in tools may be deterministic for changing culture and about cultural spillover. Blogs and Wikis are inherently more transparent than email, where 90% of collaboration occurs. Users are first gaining exposure to these tools as consumers, within consumer culture. The default in that culture with these tools is transparency and sharing. Corporate cultures vary. I can say that we see earlier adoption by corporations with healthy cultures and management practices such as 360 degree reviews, and adoption practices matter. But it should be noted that consumer culture spills over to corporate culture. And because this culture shift aids practice building, I'd assert that these tools will trend us towards transparency.
But to violently agree with Mike, when a deployment invests in practices and management shares a goal of changing culture, the transformational opportunity is significantly greater.
