Holy Web 2.0 Herding Nightmare: Page 3 of 7

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BEHIND IT SUPPORT'S BACK
We're seeing a serious disconnect between user enthusiasm and IT support. For example, Forrester research shows that Web 2.0 technologies aren't necessarily front of mind for IT: When the analyst firm asked if implementing Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs and wikis was a major initiative for 2008, 42% of 1,017 IT manager respondents said it isn't even on the agenda, while 32% said it isn't a priority. But among users, there's a different story. Jive Software says bookings for its ClearSpace collaboration environment, which combines blogs, wikis, and discussion forums, jumped almost 100% between the first and second quarters of 2007, with customers ranging from the Fortune 500 to midsize companies. PBwiki says it has more than 30,000 business accounts.

If we don't get out in front on collaboration, users are going to act as their very own IT and compliance officers. That's a problem because when a user creates an individual account, that user has ultimate control over the content. The account holder can invite other users and manage their permissions, such as adding or editing content. But managing other users' permission levels and access rights isn't a task that should be left to individual employees. It would be far too easy for an account holder to forget to deprovision a co-worker who goes to work for a competitor. Worse, the employee who sets up an account retains ultimate control over the information--even if he or she moves on.

NOT-SO-WILD WEB
While the ease with which employees can post sensitive corporate information within collaboration tools may worry IT, the truth is that these apps--even software-as-a-service products--beat e-mail hands down when it comes to managing compliance, privacy, and legal risk.

"Adoption of SharePoint, blogs, and wikis is done with an eye toward better information management," says Rob Koplowitz, principal analyst at Forrester Research. "When they are deployed in a sanctioned way, there's a great amount of visibility into what's going on, which is different from e-mail."

While Web 2.0 vendors like attracting users, they're also aware of the conflict between freedom and oversight. Thus, many provide capabilities to make collaborative environments more palatable to IT. Socialtext, for example, offers an appliance that can be deployed behind the enterprise firewall, giving IT more control over the content and ensuring that corporate information gets integrated into the company's backup and archiving systems.