This post, a proposal for a session at Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Boston, 2010, was written by Nahum Gershon and Kaleem Kamboj.
In the wedding ceremony depicted in the YouTube video, “At My Wedding Twitterring and Facebooking at the Altar”, the groom picks up his mobile device before kissing his new wife and announces to his remote friends about the latest change in his life. His new wife follows suit and does the same. This story amplifies some of the unexpected and somewhat overlooked aspects of Enterprise 2.0.
We have shifted into a world and consciousness that has no spatial and
temporal barriers- Information is available now everywhere and all the time
through our laptops and mobile devices.
24/7! The groom could not only announce to the world the latest news of
his private life, but could also get the latest news from his friend and from
the news sources, if he chose so. He could get and provide information about
his project at work during one of his most private moments. With the
proliferation of mobile devices, management expectations have changed too in
that regard. As a result, many managers
expect now to get a fast response from their employees anytime.
There are a number of issues that include:
- Is it good or bad for the enterprise that workers cannot now disengage themselves from their work and refresh their bodies and minds?
- Does forcing attention to constantly divide between various information streams and life forces make work more efficient (directly or indirectly)?
- Would the style of the new environment permeate into people private life (becoming Life 2.0)? Would that new husband, for example, talk with his new wife using Twitter instead of the phone or face to face?
- The availability of information anywhere and any time and mixing of work and life might create for work information a security issue while for private life a privacy issue.
- The open source environment is a deterrent to a myopic view, but does this fast-paced medium with its brief messages (e.g., Twitter) promote truthfulness (e.g., brevity might imply a wrong impression)? Would that cause the private life standards to evolve similarly?
Public Session Format
Utilizing the wisdom of crowd through face-to-face meeting and social
media environments, we would like in this session to discuss with the audience (present
in the room and remote one using Twitter) what are the implications of the
anywhere/any time aspects of information and connectivity on the Enterprise 2.0
and in the private life of its workers.
After the session, the results will be posted and the discussion is
expected to continue.