Web 2.0 technologies for CIOs

This guide is part of the SearchCIO.com CIO Briefing series, which is designed to give IT leaders strategic guidance and advice that addresses the management and decision-making aspects of timely topics. For a complete list of topics covered to date visit the CIO Briefing section.

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Expert's corner

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Web 2.0: Just another technology?
[ Carol Hildebrand, Contributor]

Ever since the PC snuck into corporate America through the departmental back door, CIOs have been dogged by the stereotype of being hidebound and slow to adapt to technical change. The accusation has surfaced once again in light of Web 2.0, a trend that incorporates collaboration technologies such as blogs, wikis and social networking sites.

As corporate users embrace these technologies, it has stirred a debate about just how much CIOs need to know in order to manage these new technologies. Do they have to start blogging on a daily basis, or can these tasks be delegated?

Some see this as a typical new technology adoption cycle, in which the technology in question crosses over from the consumer side and infiltrates the enterprise. "This is just like any kind of new technology; rewind the tape 10 years and we have this conversation about cell phones," said Renee Baker Arrington, vice president of Pearson Partners International Inc., a Dallas-based executive placement firm.

But others see CIOs being left behind. According to Lynda Radosevich, a New York-based consultant specializing in social media, CIOs are certainly not at the forefront of Web 2.0 technology implementations. "It's only in a few rare cases that the CIOs are initiators of social networking projects. We see business heads of local departments initiating these, while IT tends to come in with worries about security and privacy," she said. In fact, Radosevich said some vendors bypass the CIO and sell directly to the business side of the house.

The key to bringing the value of these technologies into full flower seems to lie in how well CIOs evaluate each technology, not whether they personally use them.

"There are two different perspectives on this," said Tony Young, CIO of Informatica Corp. in Redwood City, Calif. "One is what's the business use for them, and the other is what the implications are of some of these tools in terms of workforce productivity."

Young has evaluated social networking sites as well as other Web 2.0 tools for their worth as business tools, and proceeded accordingly. For him, this involves a basic conceptual understanding of each technology and the ability to understand its business value. "For example, MySpace, in my opinion, doesn't have value as a business tool in my enterprise," he said. "But technologies like wikis, blogs, webcasting and podcasting are all tools that we are leveraging and that users are embracing in various ways."

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Glossary and basics

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• Definition: Web 2.0 (Source: Whatis.com)
• Definition: Blog (Source: Whatis.com)
• Definition: Blogosphere (Source: Whatis.com)
• Definition: Moblog (Source: Whatis.com)
• Definition: Vlog (Source: Whatis.com)
• Definition: Wiki (Source: Whatis.com)
• Definition: Wikipedia (Source: Whatis.com)
• Definition: Software as a service (SaaS) (Source: Whatis.com)
• Definition: Social networking (Source: Whatis.com)

Blogs

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• Article: Wikis and blogs transforming workflow (Source: SearchCIO.com, 4/25/2006)
• Article: IM, blogs next target for litigation (Source: SearchCIO.com, 10/10/2006)
• Article: Cisco ACE gives video blogging a boost (Source: SearchNetworking.com, 9/28/2006)
• Tip: Blog rules, part 1: Best practices to keep you in business (Source: SearchCIO.com, 9/18/2006)
• Tip: Blog rules, part 2: Best practices to keep you in business (Source: SearchCIO.com, 9/18/2006)
• Tip: Does blogging pose enterprise information security risks? (Source: SearchSecurity.com, 9/15/2006)
• Feature: This Is Your Brain on a Blog (Source: CIO Decisions magazine, 8/01/2006)
• Podcast: Keys to safer, better blogging (Source: SearchCIO.com, 9/19/2006)
• Chapter download: Blog Rules: A Business Guide to Managing Policy, Public Relations, and Legal Issues, Appendix A (Source: SearchCIO.com, 9/19/2006)

Wikis

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• Feature: Working With Wikis (Source: CIO Decisions magazine, 5/01/2006)
• Article: Oracle WebCenter Suite takes Web 2.0 to the enterprise (Source: SearchOracle.com, 2/12/2007)
• Article: Wiki-based patent site grants people a say in patent process (Source: SearchOpenSource.com, 9/19/2006)
• Article: The wiki-fication of MSDN (Source: SearchVB.com, 8/26/2006)
• Article: Wikis for workflow (Source: SearchSMB.com, 4/17/2006)
• Article: WiKID Systems releases authentication tool (Source: SearchAppSecurity.com, 3/08/2006)

SaaS	Table of Contents

• Article: Vendors to crank up SaaS offerings to next year (Source: SearchSMB.com, 12/12/2006)
• Article: The ROI of SaaS vs. on-premise CRM (Source: SearchCRM.com, 9/26/2006)
• Article: SAP releases customer service module for SaaS CRM (Source: SearchCIO.com, 9/26/2006)
• Article: Salesforce.com seizes Sendia for SaaS (Source: SearchCRM.com, 4/11/2006)
• Article: SaaS the latest challenge to IT (Source: SearchCIO.com, 10/12/2006)
• Article: CRM SaaS vendors moving to mobile (Source: SearchCIO.com, 7/26/2006)
ASP vs. SaaS: What's the difference? (Source: SearchCIO.com, 9/20/2006)
• Tip: SaaS: Is it a wise business investment? (Source: SearchCIO.com, 7/26/2006)
• Column: CIOs slowly embracing SaaS (Source: SearchCIO.com, 11/09/2006)
• Feature: The Great Awareness Gap: CIOs and SaaS (Source: CIO Decisions magazine, 10/01/2006)
• Feature: What You Don't Know About SaaS (Source: CIO Decisions magazine, 10/01/2006)

More resources

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• What is Web 2.0? (Source: O'Reilly Media)