Voices on Enterprise 2.0: Ross Dawson

Written by Susan Scrupski / April 7, 2009 12:34 PM / 8 Comments

Because Enterprise 2.0 is a maturing space, there are many competing sources online for advice and opinion. It's sometimes difficult to ascertain who's who and whether their opinion is reliable and credible. I'll be occasionally highlighting voices in the community who've made a significant contribution to moving the Enterprise 2.0 discussion forward, although they may not be well known in a certain geography or technology discipline.

Today's e2.0 luminary is Ross Dawson. Dawson has held an Executive Forum on Enterprise 2.0 for the past two years in Sydney and publishes regularly on Enterprise 2.0. He's also published an excellent reference report, "Implementing Enterprise 2.0" for customers seeking a more in-depth understanding of the issues surrounding adoption and implementation.

I caught up with Ross last night. I asked him if he saw any change in the makeup of the conference attendees for this year's forum. He told me that this year the conversation has shifted markedly toward "proving the business case" and away from the information-gathering that had dominated the conversation last year.

Dawson's report, which really looks more like a book, is chock full with mini-case studies, quotes, and information sources from experts that validate and further explain the concepts he outlines. In addition to the excellent content, I appreciated that the material is presented well, with a nice use of layout and design. The information is easily digested and provides a "simple user interface" that makes absorbing the material easy.

Two charts in the book really stood out for me. The first is: "Enterprise 2.0: Key Barriers and Responses." Dawson divides 15 key barriers into Culture, Executive Attitudes, Vested Interests, and Design of Initiatives. He covers the gamut of problems and suggests practical solutions. The second is an extensive table on "Return on Investment Calculations." Although, it's been largely debated whether Enterprise 2.0 can be seen through the same lens as other investments in technology (and Dawson recognizes this), he points to realistic data sets that can be used to compile a custom ROI for each company based on real costs with related tangible and intangible values.

The book, available at Amazon for $195, is a solid reference for veterans in the space, as well as Enterprise customers who need a deeper dive into some of the key tools and challenges involved in moving ahead with a socio-collaborative strategy. For each tool in the Enterprise 2.0 toolkit, Dawson discusses its background, adoption issues, business value, key functionality, and issues with implementation.

Comments

Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteEnterprise posts

$195 seems rather steep for a book! Did you think it was worth that much?

Daniel

PS: I don't know of any real person who's ever paid $195 for a single book on Amazon.

Posted by: Daniel Tenner | April 8, 2009 12:05 AM

Here is an explanation of the book price: the publishers that publish these rather specialized trade and professional titles see professional organizations, universities, and large libraries as their main client base. They tend to market those types of books to those institutional clients. Check out the catalog for IGI Global, for example, which is one of the leading publishers of professional literature in information technology and computer-mediated communication. If an individual is rich enough to pay this much money for a book, good for them, but typically, large libraries can afford a copy or two. That does not justify the high cost, just explains the reasons a publisher might have for charging this much and the business model they might be folliowing.

Posted by: pz | April 8, 2009 6:15 AM

Ha! We actually spoke about the price and the correct label: book or report? It's all a matter of frame of reference. This "report" is more like an analyst report. Take for example Forrester's TechRadar™ For Vendor Strategists: Enterprise Web 2.0 report. That retails for $1999 off the shelf. And, although I haven't seen the report, I'm guessing it's not even bound or colorfully laid out like Ross's report (which happens to be contained within a book format). Last year, Niall Cook released a book, “Enterprise 2.0: How Social Software will change the future of work.” I complained about the price of that book (which was $89 at the time on Amazon). Niall explained that the publisher generally sells to academic and technical buyers, so the price was in line. The bottom line is, the price is trivial if you're serious about implementing a solid 2.0 strategy in your enterprise, which will require an investment of many thousands, not hundreds. In some cases, millions, but that's a comment for another day.

Posted by: Susan Scrupski | April 8, 2009 6:50 AM

Thanks Susan. When we spoke I also mentioned that I had plans to release a digital version of my book at a much lower price point - and now I have.

RRW readers can download a copy of the Enterprise 2.0 eBook for just under $15 from http://bit.ly/enterprise20info.

Posted by: Niall Cook | April 9, 2009 2:31 AM

Thank you Susan!! :-)

On the price, as Susan says it makes more sense to think of this as an inexpensive report than an expensive book - it is designed to be very pragmatic in helping companies make their internal web 2.0 initiatives more effective and productive. So if it succeeds even a little bit it's great value :-)

The report is selling well on Amazon.com and elsewhere and companies are ordering additional copies when they've seen it.

But if people object to the price of this report, they can always download my entire book Living Networks for free: http://livingnetworksbook.com/

or there are of course quite a few free chapters from the Implementing Enterprise 2.0 report anyway: http://implementingenterprise2.com/

Posted by: Ross Dawson | April 9, 2009 4:43 AM

thanks for the very educational resource. inspite of the $195 tag, the book does sound like a very juicy proposition. it would especially be interesting to read case studies, and how companies large and small are adopting enterprise 2.0 technologies, and their learnings therefrom.

Posted by: Intranet Consultant | April 15, 2009 1:08 PM