This is the fourth in a series of my notes on the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston, June 14- 17. This post covers the keynote, The State of Enterprise 2.0 by Andrew McAfee , Principal Research Scientist, Center for Digital Business, MIT Sloan School of Management. How could I miss this one? After hearing the session I would subtitle it: Andy and the Four Tensions. Here is the description. My notes that follow will explain what I mean.

“The technologies, practices, and philosophies of Enterprise 2.0 continue to gain traction in corporate life, and some believe a tipping point has been reached. This talk will cover what's happening, what's working well, and what could be improved as we work to change how work gets done.”

Andy started by talking about how he wanted to frame the issue with some screen shots starting with many new vendor announcements. However he found that there too many to show.  Gartner thinks we have passed the tipping point on enterprise 2.0. McKinsey has had an e20 survey for the three years and the latest one shows great take up and good customer satisfaction.

Andy said that now there are four tensions in the enterprise around enterprise 2.0. the first is whether they will act as a cargo cult or build real infrastructure. He said that many South Pacific islanders after World War Two were building runways for planes that did not exist, During the war they saw when planes landed  with abundance of supplies and now they were gone.  So they built the runways to bring the cargo planes back. Are enterprises now doing the same thing? Are they going through the motions hoping it benefits will happen by chance?

The reality is that you need to build real infrastructure – both people and tech infrastructure – there is no short cut.

Second tension is the focus on the inner or outer rings of enterprise 2.0 bull eye In other words what is the focus on strong ties vs weak ties and potential, but yet unknown connections. Histrorically we have focused on the strong ties in terms of tech infrastructure but there is great potential for value in the outer rings so we need more focus there. Historically there was weak focus for weak ties and nonexistent focus at potential rings,  Now with the e20 robust tech is available for the two outer rings.

The third tension is between – direction by the HiPPO or creating a superorgansism. He said this is a real tension and there is no correct answer. HiPPo is described as the highest paid person in the organization or C level top down command and control. People still need this high level direction but likely need less direction from above. Now there is an alternative to command and control. It is the superorganism that is like an ant colony that can build from bottom up.  There is not hierarchy in an ant colony but it can work together without top down leadership a true collective with out a hippo. However they interaction so e20 can promote this interaction in enterprise.

The fourth tension is the assumption that world is one of stability or flux. Andy said it feels like the market share is shifting more towards the flux. In the past we tried for efficiency through stability and assembly lines. If we really got good we can even automate people out of processes,. This is a real tension as there is still a role for stability but we also need more flux.  Things are happening more quickly and we need to stay up with them.   The tool kit for dealing with flux is here with e20.

Andy said a lot in fifteen minutes.  My Darwin partner, Thierry Hubert, and I are presenting on Wednesday at 1 PM at this conference in the Search track.  Our session is Using Chaos Theory Principals to Overcome Information Overload within the Enterprise and on the Web #e2conf-31. We hope to see you there.