Jessi Hempel, Innovation editor at BusinessWeek, looks at a McKinsey report concerning adoption (or lack thereof) of Web 2.0 technologies among gloabal corporations.
Following the study, Jacques Bughin, who’s a director in McKinsey’s Brussels office interviewed a number of the respondents. “The reason why blogs and wikis, in particular, aren’t well used is that companies are still afraid,” he posits.
Another barrier to embracing blogs and wikis: Bughin points out that in a knowledge economy where companies remain hierarchical in structure, knowledge is power. If workers put their most precious information in a wiki, their status within their organization could be threatened.
“The problem is that people with heavy knowledge tend to keep that for themselves, because that’s the way they define their job,” says Bughin. “Put it in a wiki and everyone has it.” If he’s right, companies serious about embracing these collaborative technologies will need to find a new incentive system for employees.
