A story about Enterprise 2.0 and eating cake

Once upon a time in the powerful yet often misunderstood world called the Enterprise, people went to work in offices in small teams. They personalized their cubicle walls with colorful family photos and postcards of upcoming events. They would celebrate birthdays together by singing around a delicious home baked cake while catching up on project gossip. Occasionally jokes or stories about clients were shared (or vented) across the partition. Generally speaking, it was a happy little world where people worked hard in comfort of social surrounds.

 

Suddenly the world changed. It got flatter. Teams were structured out of skilled individuals working in different countries and different timezones. Baby Boomers started to retire or semi-retire. More staff worked part time and remotely, either at home or on client site. Desktops were replaced with laptops. Landlines were replaced with mobiles. Even training was done online instead of in a classroom. The birthday cake ritual was no more and we ate our own cake instead.

Individuals became more disconnected from their colleagues. Deadlines became more immediate. Panic set in as skilled workers were more difficult to find or retain. Knowledge became trapped and lost, only leaving behind a trail of email crumbs to collect. The world of the Enterprise was functioning, but not necessarily effective.

Meanwhile, in another dimension not too far way, the curious beast called the World Wide Web sprouted wings. It heard of the plight of the cake ritual and became a thing called "Web 2.0" so that people could sing, share stories and most importantly, eat cake together again. It evolved in the form of blogs, wikis, social networking sites, shared bookmarking and a most unusual, beguiling creature called Twitter. Virtual Worlds (like Secondlife) became a place where remote teams could get to know one another, navigating a colorful, visual terrain to overcome obstacles and create a sense of team once again.

Despite the new challenges of working from different locations, timezones or reduced working hours, the world of the Enterprise once again became an engaging place to work. It was easier to share knowledge, photos, videos, events, stories, information and have conversations with subject matter experts all around the world, even having groundbreaking conversations with people outside of the Enterprise using these new dynamic tools. In fact, the new way of working was producing more ways to innovate and collaborate within the Enterprise than ever before. Now that's some kind of cake. The panic to find skilled knowledge workers was over and the people shouted "hurrah".

Except for those still working in the old Enterprise in little cubicles at their desktops, who didn't understand what the fuss was all about and why the world needed to change at all.

Jasmin Tragas is a Managing Consultant working in the area of Knowledge, Collaboration and Learning Services, HCM, Australia. She has been with IBM since 2000, works part time and is the mother of three young children.

Comments

[Ethan McCarty]

Jasmin, Well said! You have a wonderful way of writing lucidly and accessibly/ There's a really big shift happening now in the way we work, which is to say, the way we live. Whether you are in or out of the workforce, it's a big deal because it really is a shift as well in human relations. The connectivity afforded me (sitting here "alone" in my apartment right now) is unprecedented. I'm not alone at all -- and this challenges fundamentally what I think of as my way of interacting with others. This new level of connectivity calls into question staid definitions of "colleague," "friend" and perhaps even "family." I think it's an exciting time for the enterprise and beyond.

[Larry Phipps]

Jasmin, What a delight to read your charming tale. As Ethan said, you write with a wonderfully accessible touch.

And you remind us of the incredibly transformational period that surrounds, engulfs, challenges and sustains us.

Not too long ago, experts were predicting the decline of the individual - the end result of many years of evolving "man in the grey flannel suit".

Suddenly we are experiencing a new lifeforce of liberating energy that allows us to "be all that we can be".

I'm excited. Now, if I can just find the door to this cubicle ...

Thanks for the lovely view of our evolving world.

I'm fairly a-twitter with the possibilities.

[Debbe Kennedy, Global Dialogue Center (former IBMer)]

Dear Jasmin,
What a great tale of our new reality blossoming. In many ways, I have personally found something very special about the new emerging work with all its possibilities. I am a baby boomer -- hardly retired or even semi-retired -- must I? Someday, but I still feel with a great passion like Viktor Frankl described in Man's Search for Meaning --- I "still have something significant left to contribute." So, I choose to be in this great new world you describe. What is great about it is that all of us across many dimensions of difference can meet to teach and enjoy together in ways the old segmented would wouldn't allow. One flash I just had writing this was how in Los Angeles at IBM in the very big IBM building there at one time, different divisions rarely spoke in the elevators. No one explained why, it was just us self-selecting to be in our own groupings. I like the new openness and possibilities.

I sat on a houseboat about 10 years ago with a couple of friends and dreamed how one day I would be able to travel without traveling and truly "be with people". My luggage was worn out from 36-40 trips a year with IBM (hehehe) and then later packing it up as I started my company too. Today, I have a vibrant "global neighborhood" where I conduct most of my business with a new growing collection of friends and business colleagues around the globe. As technology continues to bring new possibilities, I get to see their faces and hear their voices --- in the beginning it was only the hidden energy that came from the heart typed into permanence that connected us across time and distance and culture. What has stunned me is how through the virtual space we've met each other on common ground in a place where there is honesty, mutual trust, respect, caring about one another for reasons you can't tell and a thirst each in our own ways to contribute something from our talents. We find each other it seems in ways and meaning that is hard to express.

So from reading your message I am again savoring my bit of delicious cake!

Thank you!

Debbe

[Jasmin Tragas]

Thanks Debbe!
Yes one of the wonderful thing about social media and virtual worlds, is the opportunity it presents for baby boomers, part-timers and remote teams to connect.
I vividly remember a friend telling me in 1993 how we would one day be able to work with laptops while sitting outside.
It certainly is an exciting time to be a global knowledge worker.

[Marina Huber]

Hello Jasmin,

I am from the "new" generation. I have just started working and studying two years ago (at IBM Germany), so I only know the "new way of working": Connecting to people all over the world withing seconds, being able to work wherever you want only needing internet.
Without this change I would probably not be here in New York doing an internship with the Greater IBM Connection...

Thanks for your wonderful text.

[Robyn Bennett]

Jasmin, I really enjoyed your post and the comparison of the b-day cake ritual to the 'web 2.0' ways of the web. I feel a bit like a caterpillar morphing into social butterfly as I try to venture into this new space. The thought of cake is motivating -- let it be chocolate!