During my most recent trip to the Smithsonian Zoo (Washington D.C.) with family, we sat through part of a very well done session on animals in the wild. During his talk, the zoo guide mentioned some very interesting points around how our environment is different from that of animals. Although obvious, the one point that stood out to me was around “Tools available to Humans vs. Tools available to Animals”.

The tools available to humans are evolving everyday and enabling us to do things that we have never done before – and do them better, faster and cheaper. Just think how we:

• Communicated 10, 20, 50, 100, 200 years ago
• Traveled 10, 20, 50, 100 years ago
• Consumed information, Entertained, lived etc.

Now think how animals lived 10, 20, 50, 100 years ago and how they live now.  Not much has changed in their environment.  The tools available to them today are the exact same tools that were available to them 100s of years ago.

The constant evolution of tools is what fuels our growth, makes us so much more efficient at the things we do and makes seemingly impossible tasks possible. Things we take for granted today (for e.g. talking on the phone) is all possible because of our contant pursuit of creating better tools. This is what we all wake up for and get excited about everyday.

Enterprise 2.0 tools are no different. Over the last 10 – 15 years, the way we do business has evolved, but businesses have been slow to update their communication and collaboration tool sets. There are a few different ways enterprise 2.0 gets defined by the pundits. In the end, it boils down to Enterprise 2.0 tools being the next iteration of communication and collaboration tools that make us more efficient and effective at work.

However, this iteration brings a fundamental shift in how we inform, collaborate and execute at work. This fundamental change is enabled because of a simple shift from Push to Pull based communication paradigm (also called closed to open or platform vs. channel centric) popularized by FaceBook and Twitter. This shift in our personal lives has transformed the way we communicate and stay in touch with our personal social networks. In our work lives, because of the context and purpose a business provides, I believe this shift is even more important.

Just like we graduated from using a 9 keypad phone to using smart-phones, all businesses will graduate to using the Enterprise 2.0 tool sets. So, it is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when. The sooner businesses deploy these new tools, the sooner they can take advantage of them and get a leg up on competition.

Nature tells us that the choice is simple – evolve or become extinct. History tells us that humans are very good at adopting and evolving. What will you choose?

Sooner you update the tool sets you use in your business, the sooner you can take advantage of all the benefits next generation of business tools bring. Give us a call or email us and we will be happy to assist you as you evaluate your evolution options.