With the rise of Web 2.0, which revolutionised the World Wide Web, the term Enterprise 2.0 has been introduced to refer to the use of "Web 2.0" technologies within Organisations to enhancing collaboration both within and between Organisations, through the use of social-media tools. Enterprise 2.0 has the potential to help employees, customers and suppliers collaborate, share, and organize information and it has the ability to enable or streamline business processes.

Andrew McAfee, who is one of the main proponents of the term Enterprise 2.0, argues that “thanks to a new class of collaborative technologies, Organisations can now leverage information in valuable new ways”. McAfee believes that through the use of wiki’s, blogs, social platforms (i.e a corporate Facebook) or Twitter, organisations can overcome the (geographical) dispersion of knowledge and expertise. However, the academic underpinning of these expectations is – at the least – thin. Most articles are limited to case studies which are providing support for the potential role of Web 2.0 technologies within Organisations. But even McAfee admits that there are many case studies showing how Enterprise 2.0 efforts are failing within Organisations.

Almost simultaneously with the rise of Enterprise 2.0, Nicholas Carr has started a debate on the downside of using internet technology to distribute and share information and knowledge. His basic argument, first presented in an article with the enticing title ” Is Google making us stupid?”, is that the structure and the abundance of information (‘information overload’) on the Web has a detrimental effect on the brain and consequently our decision performance. One of the consequences of Carr’s arguments could be that that adding new Web 2.0 technologies to communicate and share information and knowledge, may harm Organisations more than it helps them. However, although there is general agreement about the existence of an information overload on the web, there is less agreement – and less evidence – on its effects on individuals and organisations.

Your assignment is to write a paper about this debate. Is there any academic substance to McAfee’s or Carr’s arguments? Under what conditions can social media help corporations to compete and survive in a fast changing business environment? What role does IT play in creating this opportunity. And what does this imply for Information managers within Organisations?

• McAfee (2006), ‘Enterprise 2.0: The dawn of emergent collaboration’, MIT Sloan Management Review.
• McAfee, A., “Shattering the Myths About Enterprise 2.0.”, Harvard Business Review, Nov2009, Vol. 87 Issue 11, special section p1-6
• ANDRIOLE, STEPHEN J., “Business impact of Web 2.0 technologies”. Communications of the ACM, Dec2010, Vol. 53 Issue 12, p67-79
• Bughin, J., Chui, M., “How Web 2.0 pays off: The growth dividend enjoyed by networked enterprises.”, McKinsey Quarterly, 2011, Issue 2, p17-21.
• Bell, J., Loane, S., “'New-wave' global firms: Web 2.0 and SME internationalisation” Journal of Marketing Management, Mar2010, Vol. 26 Issue 3/4, p213-229
• Turban E, Bolloju N, Liang T. Enterprise Social Networking: Opportunities, Adoption, and Risk Mitigation. Journal Of Organizational Computing & Electronic Commerce.
• Carr, N., “Is Google making us stupid” : http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/
• Hemp, P., “Death by information overload”, Harvard Business Review, Sep2009, Vol. 87 Issue 9, p82-89
• Carmichael, F., Palacios-Marques, D., Gil-Pechuan, I., How to create information management capabilities through web 2.0, The Service Industries Journal [0264-2069] yr:2011 vol:31 iss:10 pg:1613

Other useful resources:
- Note that Nicholas Carr’s website is a great source of information, with a.o. a vast amount of reactions to his publications (www.nicholasgcarr.com;
www.nicholasgcarr.com/articlesmt/archives/it_doesnt_matter.shtml.)
- Similarly, Andrew McAfee has a blog which can be used for the newest developments in his work (http://andrewmcafee.org/blog/)

Books
McAfee, A., Enterprise 2.0, Harvard Business Press, 2009. ISBN 978-1-4221-2587-8
Carr, N., The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, Atlantic Books, 2010. ISBN 978-84887-226-4
Small & Vorgan, iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind, 2008.

Information management