Enterprise 2.0: Where the f$#@ is my market?
Posted: December 20th, 2007 | Author: Jevon | Filed under: Uncategorized | 30 Comments »There is one small detail that a lot of us forget when we jump in to a new venture. The one nit-picky thing is that it is usually a good idea to have a maket to sell in to.
Some products find a market. Some will disrupt a market. A few will capture a market, and even fewer will create a market.
Is there such thing as an Enterprise 2.0 market? If so, can you sell in to it? If not: are there startups trying to sell to customers who don’t exist?
To answer the question: There is no Enterprise 2.0 market. Enterprise 2.0 budgets do not exist, except where some early adoptors create them, and there is no Enterprise 2.0 sales cycle. There are very few incentive available to experts right now and the discontinuity that has arisen in the concept is a symptom of that.
From an economic point of view, Enterprise 2.0 does not exist.
This presents a problem for a few people, but most of all it is a barb in the side of the world of Enterprise 2.0 Startups we have seen emerging in the last few years. Most have spent a lot of time, and even more money, trying to sell in to a market that they have no power to either create, define or own.
If you are trying to define an Enterprise 2.0 market, then you will first need to define a problem set that is solveable and that customers in the market will reward you for solving.
Defining the narrower Enterprise 2.0 Software Market means having a problem set that is solveable by software alone. If you are a provider of software only, then this is a big problem right now.
OUCH
Since the genesis of the term Enterprise 2.0, most of us have not had a problem describing the technology that falls under its umbrella. SLATES, which stands for Search, Links, Authoring, Tags, Extensions, and Signals, is a prime example as it defines a set of technical patterns which could theoretically be applied to solve some set of problems, but the catch is that the problem set still remains largely undefined 2 years later.
What markets do exist?
You can approach this problem 2 ways. The first is to offer a solution that solves a basic need across a host of industries. Jeff mentioned Echosign as a great example of this, their digital signature solution is growing steadily across a large customer base and they are potentially becoming a platform for other identity-based solutions. This is dramatically different from selling a suite of tools to a host of industries, it is focused on solving a specific problem using the 2.0 motif.
The second approach is to sell in to existing vertical markets. That means you are building an Enterprise 2.0 specific toolkit for an industry that needs it. In doing this your solution will have not offer just the same Social Bookmarking, Tagging, Blogs, and Wikis that you probably have, but you will need to offer vertical-specific features which string your Enterprise 2.0 tools together. In doing this there is also a potentially lucrative platform play in partnering with other E2.0 companies who want to sell in to your vertical market.
You will die on that cross
Do not go to war for Enterprise 2.0. We are seeing many of the failings of the moniker as its message has become more and more fuzzy, it is time for you to rescue your startup and refocus. The people who are making the most money off this term right now are consultants who are helping their clients navigate some of the fluff from the substance.
An Enterprise 2.0 market can only emerge when there are a significant number of healthy startups who are successful in either their own vertical or niche space. Through the slow rolling up (consolidation) of those smaller markets, a larger market can be created. This has been seen with Content Management and even with Sharepoint (yes, there is a Sharepoint market). It never did happen with Knowledge Management however.
What about me?, I am an Enterprise 2.0 customer
I can only imagine that this post is a little confusing for those of you who are trying to bring Enterprise 2.0 solutions in to your companies. Here is my advice:
Find a real problem and find a real solution for it
If you recognize like I do that throwing grease (I mean – SLATES) on the fire will only make it worse, then try to focus in. What specific problems in your organization could benefit from a blog-based approach, or under what circumstances would a wiki solve a real headache. What I am saying is: Turn off the noise and get down to work
Don’t trumpet Enterprise 2.0, talk about those real problems
When you find or solve a problem then you should talk about it not in terms of Enterprise 2.0, but in terms of an agile, low-cost approach. This makes sense to a lot more people.
I believe that Enterprise 2.0 provides a framework under which early adoptors are able to connect and share their own knowledge, but it is far too loosely defined in order to be able to be applied directly to any set of organizational problems. What makes it worse is that also means there is no market which can sustain Enterprise 2.0 innovation, and I believe that lack of a knowledge market and of a real dollar market is why we have seen so little movement in the concept in the last year.
The Enterprise 2.0 moniker is for those who do not need direct economic reward or incentive.
My name is Jevon MacDonald. I'm a co-founder of
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Enterprise 2.0 solutions also need to be clearly positioned as either solving a 1.0 problem OR mitigating a problem yet to come with the proliferation of SLATES. This can be a functional or vertical solution but represents a good starting point to engage customers trying to get a handle on what’s applicable to them.
Tricky .. marriage of OD and software vending, and requires a lot of organizational understanding and nouse with respect to the design of knowledge work.
So I guess we will not be having any E2.0 camps soon.
I think what you have described is good advice for many types of new ventures. As one of those consultants trying to sell E2.0 it is a harder sell. It is only possible for us if we talk about how these technologies can, as you said, solve a problem that their current IT infrastructure doesn’t do well. We do this as well with SharePoint, which I know is a touchy subject for some people.
Have a good holiday.
[...] difficult to navigate and fuzzy to those trying to make sense of the current wave of innovation. Jevon MacDonald nails it in talking about Enterprise 2.0: There is one small detail that a lot of us forget when we [...]
[...] Are you prepared? from Larry Dignan. Back on twitter, I was drawn in to click on this headline: Enterprise 2.0: Where the f$#@ is my market? from Jevon [...]
[...] forward the fundamental restructuring that the buzzword implies. Right now, we are clearly in the infancy of what the market will bear in regards to professional services built around E2.0 offerings. But, as momentum grows, there will [...]
[...] asked Sam what his reaction was to Jevon’s post about the Enterprise 2.0 Market, where Jevon asked “Is there such thing as an Enterprise 2.0 market? If so, can you sell in [...]
Jevon: Love the great economic perspectives.
Just extending the thoughts, freestyle. Is 2.0 a noun or a verb? Is it the result or the act to produce the result?
I think the problem may be in the way we define and/or think about markets. For many it’s about income or potential (generating or ability to generate).
If you assume for a moment the postulate 2.0 =
[...] 2.0, NGE, Talent Management, Technology Thanks to Twitter, I ran across a post by Jevon MacDonald about an Enterprise 2.0 market. More specifically, the post was Jevon arguing that there is no [...]
[...] IT-centerfolds of the month etc.). And indeed some cooling might help. So when Jevon asks: “Enterprise 2.0: Where the f$#@ is my market?“, this is not a totally rhetorical question, but can help in clarifying social software [...]
[...] Jevon MacDonald, Enterprise 2.0: Where the f$#@ is my market? | socialwrite.com [...]
[...] to this notion that Enterprise 2.0 doesn’t exist because there is no market, I call shenanigans. Businesspeople have spent money on trying to improve their organizations in [...]
[...] Our industry often contemplates the “sexy” ingredients but it’s important to focus on the values that these consumer tools provide and then arrive at a plan for how to bring those values together in a meaningful way. Unfortunately, a lot of companies are racing out and grocery shopping the ingredients (”I need a blog, wiki-stuff, some social networking”) and plan to cobble them together (read: Junk Drawer part II). While still others sit back and wonder if there’s a real market. [...]
[...] got very little negative feedback on my post about the state of the “market for Enterprise 2.0 tools other than from a few marketers who were understandably [...]
[...] see it seems to me that profitability might help substantiate the market. It would mean that Enterprise 2.0 isn’t a theory or a term upheld by a bunch of jaded [...]
[...] Jevon MacDonald and I have been chatting about thought leadership on Enterprise 2.0. The “un-market” is nearly 2 years old and several new voices have emerged. Niall Cook, who is now the [...]
[...] have to agree with Jevon MacDonald concerning the non-existence of Enterprise 2.0. I mean people are still defining Web 2 and we know it takes forever for the enterprise community [...]
[...] A side note: One of the things that’s interesting about Kapow, at least in terms of the E2.0 software vendor space is considered, is that they have a sound, and profitable business model. They make software that people want to buy and (at least according to them) sell lots of it. Maybe a market for E2.0 tools does exist. [...]
Its that “fuzziness” aspect is where I think the established software companies have a huge advantage over the startups. Every CEO will see the qualitative benefits, but calculating the $$$$$ benefit is insanely hard. Without this, a decision maker at a company is going to feel more inclined to purchase a product for a proven commodity since the upside isn’t calculable, but the downside (security) can have dramatic effects.
market umbrella…
Well spoken. I have to research more on this as it is really vital info….
[...] last thing I would recommend is to go out pushing the enterprise 2.0 banner as a sales approach. As Jevon MacDonald rightly said, “Enterprise 2.0 budgets do not exist, except where some early adopters create [...]
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[...] Where The F**ck Is The Enterprise 2.0 Market? [...]
[...] It’s written more for Web 2.0 entrepreneurs than potential Web 2.0 customers, thus the title Enterprise 2.0: Where the f$#@ is my market? (And it substitutes the term Enterprise 2.0 for Web 2.o, which is a whole other discussion, as [...]
[...] good example of this happening right now is the Enterprise 2.0 market. Jevon Macdonald wrote a great post on the lack of an established market for Enterprise [...]
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[...] effects In late 2007 I wrote a post in which I stated that there is no Enterprise 2.0 Market. I believe that is still true today, but I think we have a better understanding of [...]