You’d be hard pressed to distinguish clearly between revolutions and evolutions on the Internet. Web 2.0 has revolutionary tones. To take a historical view, the world experienced the Industrial Revolution when muscle power was replaced by steam power. The Second Industrial Revolution occurred when developments in steel and plastics enabled the assembly lines exemplified by Henry Ford’s plants. Next was the Information Age, driven by what are now regarded as quaint terms - ‘computing’ and ‘information systems’. Following that, the Internet purportedly “changed everything”, and today we find ourselves trying to understand and codify a new context again – Web 2.0. While this is clearly an evolving scenario over time, experiencing rapid change in the moment can feel like a revolution.

The generation that lives and loves Web 2.0 is quite distinctive. As citizens of the Web we feel entitled to make our views known and to have them heard. That’s what people know; that’s what they expect. The rules of an earlier era are anachronistic: the organising, editing, filtering and permitting of views, opinions, information and knowledge has little meaning in this context. As workers, they exhibit little loyalty to institutions and employers and the concept of permanent work, or even a ‘job’.  For their managers struggling to exercise some kind of authority, that is baffling at the least and infuriating at worst. How can managers control a workforce (there’s another quaint term) which does not depend on them?  The hierarchical models are consigned to the past. But, in the user-generated content models of Web 2.0, we seem now to be observing legions of amateurs happy to work for free. What we are seeing in the obvious examples such as Wikipedia, Amazon and Netflix will filter down into every sector.

The operations of Web 2.0 are, by nature, organic. There is no hierarchy providing the materials and setting out the way the technology must work. Whether in the institutions of work or in the broader community, what we are seeing are grassroots efforts by participants who neither seek nor recognise the imprimatur of authority. With totally open and accessible technology, such permission is unnecessary. Indeed, they regard the role of managers and resourcers as providing the basic support and then getting out of the way.

In The Future of Management, Gary Hamel contends that business organisations have less control over their destinies. The decisions they make are increasingly influenced by the decisions of others. That is, companies find themselves enmeshed in ecosystems and networks which influence and even determine their futures. Disintermediation, de-verticalisation, outsourcing and all manner of co-development projects and consortia reduce their control. Of course, we recognise the role of Web 2.0 in this opening up of business. Now, more enlightened business organisations are engaging with Web 2.0 in many ways and for many reasons. A recent McKinsey Global Survey reports that three quarters of respondent executives plan to maintain or increase their investments in Web 2.0-type technologies, and more than half regret not having moved into this space sooner. The most common benefits sought by firms are improved communications with customers, suppliers and partners, and within the organisation; these improvements are intended to improve market intelligence, customer service, and overall integration of effort. Ultimately, businesses need to be involved to learn. Earlier this year, IBM unveiled a revamped Web 2.0 platform to enhance the ability of enterprises to capitalise on the social networking phenomenon, and its Lotus Connections software has proved to be one of the fastest-growing products it has ever introduced. Indeed, Lotus Mashups – a mashup creator geared for business – is indicative of the spread of such models.

Thus, for business, this process involves opening up, loosening of reins and embracing of wide-ranging ideas. Entering into ongoing conversations with the market appears to be the natural and even necessary direction if we accept the inevitability of these trends. We understand the upside; but is there a downside? What might make business cautious about all of this? Certainly, for a generation of managers and self-believing leaders, there is a real threat of loss of face. Most probably understand the argument that “what got us here won’t get us there”. But at a deeper level, what might they fear?  

Part of the answer may be found in arguments that are taking place beyond mainstream commerce. In the culture debates, some of the most refreshing discussions relate to the question of whether or not user-generated content is an inadequate replacement for mainstream media. Andrew Keen has become the “antichrist of Silicon Valley” by arguing that the poor intellectual quality of this kind of content gives rise to a cult of the amateur, which is now killing culture and assaulting the economy. Leveraging the relativism charge, he maintains that for Generation Y, every posting is just another person’s version of the truth; every fiction is just another person’s version of the facts. Managers of another generation may feel a strong sense that they are obliged to defend against such a stream of ideas and utterances. They may feel they are obliged to work in the interests of their many stakeholders – shareholders, employees, customers, partners, the general public – and therefore compelled to maintain some form of control.

In the midst of the torrent of change exemplified by Web 2.0, it is worth noting that we are simply part of an evolving story. But ongoing evolution of has caused revolution in business form and function. What we do and how we do it has changed utterly – from our responses to markets, our engagement with competitors, our understanding of how to manage people and so on. Command and control models do not naturally permit authority to be devolved out and down the organisation. But the reality of Web 2.0 shows clearly that the devolution of information and communication from the centre is done. Users are generating the information and communication content. On their own terms. Without permission. Don’t bother trying to shut the barn door - that horse has bolted. Now the priority is to really understand what is meant by the co-creation of value…