Andrew McAfee’s Enterprise 2.0 Book Review

[Sean Lew]

First of all, I really enjoyed reading Andrew McAfee’s Enterprise 2.0 book. It concisely describes the problem at hand and provide four case studies to help illustrate his point. He went on to provide a strong definition of Enterprise 2.0 and what it consists of. Additionally, he provided some theoretical background to Enterprise 2.0 which I found extremely refreshing. Finally, he went on to describe in some detail how to succeed with Enterprise 2.0.

Enterprise 2.0 is something that is fairly new in the commercial and academic world. It is not a rocket science technology however, it brings together many past concepts and technologies like advance web technologies, collaboration concepts, knowledge management, social networking concepts, groupware technologies and many more under one technology platform. Additionally, Enterprise 2.0 adds new ways of doing things like freeform editing, self organisation, mobile integration and so on. Andrew McAfee did a very good job in summarising these tools and concepts into a book. I specifically like the chapter of “New approaches to old problems”

Probably being half an academic at heart, I found lacking in this book is the strong research data that could help substantiate some of his points. I guess Enterprise 2.0 being fairly new in this industry, there is a lack of research data in the field and I feel that research on the usage and development of Enterprise 2.0 over a period of time would provide very interesting insights.

I think this book is for anyone who is interested in Enterprise 2.0. For an expert in Enterprise 2.0, this book is a good summary of the concept. For your boss who doesn’t understand Enterprise 2.0, it would be a good starting point. Excellent read. Well done Andrew.



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