Opening this morning’s proceedings was Chair and social computing expert Euan Semple. Well known as a pioneer of blogging and for his work developing the BBC’s online assets, Euan began by asking how many of the days attendees were working on web 2.0 or enterprise 2.0 initiatives, a few hands were shown. We were either feeling a bit shy or more likely, adoption and uptake is still in its infancy. That seems to tally up with the majority of Global 2000 firms who are now buying and investing in Enterprise 2.0 tools this year. Interestingly, lag tends to come from the more nimble SME sized companies.

The first keynote session examined the strategic value of enterprise 2.0, how web 2.0 is transforming the world of business. Dion Hinchcliffe,  Editor in Chief of Social Computing Magazine and business strategist, talked about how social media and enterprise 2.0 is seeing interest on a global level, how wikis are generating a massive interest, growing significantly in the last 3 to 4 years despite being around for much longer than that.

Why should your organisation adopt Enterprise 2.0 tools? Well improved communications obviously, higher productivity, cross pollination and leverage of knowledge is also key. The ROI apparently comes from a greater innovation in the organisation although that kind of result will take time to become evident, let alone directly measure.

In 2008 all the big vendors (such as Oracle or SAP) are either already offering or developing enterprise 2.0 products. But be aware older products are out there being retrofitted and relabelled. I got the impression from Hinchcliffe that doesn’t have to be a problem so long as what is released works well.

Security issues, and cultural set-ups can be a cause of hold-up depending on the kind of organisation you work for. Sometimes you don’t want all your best ideas floating around out there when they can so easily walk out the door on a disk.

All the same, Hinchlciffe explained how communities of users (customers in general) are often some of the best people to tell you what works and doesn’t about your products and services. Consider too what Hinchcliffe referred to as the ‘Network effect’ which "occurs when a good or service has more value, the more that other people have it too.”

Now couple that with the background, internal expert knowledge worker and you have a valuable well of information to tap into.

From all of this I see an emerging role for the information worker, one who knows how best to encourage knowledge leverage by the workforce but also communicate with the end–user. They appreciate already the need to keep that knowledge and information secure. This role needs expertise but also creativity, energy and a voice. Is that you?

More from Web 2.0 strategies later…