I yield to almost no one in my belief about the power and utility of ESSPs [ Emergent Social Software Platforms ], but I just don’t think they’re going to transform the structure or purpose of the enterprise. As I wrote earlier, I don’t see E2.0’s tools, approaches, and philosophies making obsolete managers, hierarchies, org charts, and formal cross functional business processes...

I want to be clear: Lloyd’s post is fantastic: grounded and very thoughtful. He’s not in the enterprise-as-slime-mold camp. And I definitely agree with him that Enterprise 2.0 is a big deal. So what’s the right way to describe its impact?

Here’s my take: ESSPs will have about as big an impact on the informal processes of the organization as large-scale commercial enterprise systems (ERP, CRM, Supply Chain, etc.) have had on the formal processes.

This is not a conservative statement. Enterprise systems have been a huge deal for organizations. They’ve turned reengineering from a whiteboard exercise into an unignorable reality for many, many companies. And Drucker was right when he said that “Reengineering is new, and it has to be done.” - Andrew McAfee Nov 20, 2009

Great post Andrew. I think what is happening IS a big deal but have been wary of labelling it Enterprise 2.0 as this makes it too easy to make it "other" and ignore it or assimilate it - bit like what happened to KM. I don't think our current methods of organisation are inevitable and I don't think we have even begun to see the effect of networked ways of thinking on how we relate to the world. This is why when asked recently how long I thought it would be before the full impact of what is happening works itself into organisational life I said fifty years.

I'm sticking to 50 years from now! I was thinking of the impact on how we structure organisations rather than just common adoption of technologies. Still think that will take a long time.