Jo and Charlie both work in roles that require collaboration. Charlie is enthusiastic about using new web 2.0 tools to improve collaboration, like blogs to have dialogues, wikis to collaboratively edit documents, LinkedIn to manage professional networks, RSS feeds to get updates on frequently visited sites, and bookmark tagging to share resources. Charlie convinces Jo that these tools can help her work more efficiently by streamlining communication and information sharing across geographical distances.

1. When Jo meets Charlie what is Enterprise2.0 ?

3. Jo has a love/hate relationship with email ! “ I seem to spend many hours on teleconferences, but still send a lot of emails to communicate with my colleagues. At least with email, there is a record of what was said ! ” “ Working on global teams is really challenging – either you are always travelling or you have limited windows of time to speak on the phone together. After all, t here are only so many hours in the working day !” Why ? Charlie says “ You have probably heard about blogs (web logs) – and while they are not yet common in the workplace they could help you dialogue with, rather than broadcast to , colleagues across the globe” “ I seem to run from one meeting to the next – no wonder minutes of these discussions are often so brief they fail to capture the richness of the discussion.”

4. his boss subscribes to it via an RSS feed his team subscribe to it via an RSS feed 130 people he doesn’t know subscribe to it via an RSS feed they all feel like they know him and his project real well Charlie has a project blog

5. Jo has a love/hate relationship with email ! “ Like everyone I feel that I get too many emails. But I also know that I send a lot” “ It is a convenient way to send out document for review to several colleagues at the same time … and I’ve even started putting large documents in Livelink and only sending on the URL !” Why ? Charlie says “ Lets me tell you about wikis – they could make it even easier to collaborate on editing documents”

6. Charlie uses a wiki ….. a lot the wiki is accessible and editable by everyone in his extended team

7. Jo has a love/hate relationship with email ! “ Yes I do get distracted by email alerts, but I also feel the need to keep Outlook running in the background because sometimes these emails do require my immediate attention” “ Our site broadcast system uses email to send out urgent messages, for example about new computer viruses and nearby road closures that could affect our commute” Why ? Charlie says “ You’ve probably have heard of instant messaging and wondered why anyone would want yet another on-line communication tool – but let me try to sell this to you ! “ While I shouldn’t admit this, when I’m on teleconferences email enables parallel conversations to take place. Without such multi-tasking, I’d probably not leave the office until 10pm each night !”

8. This allows him to be in control of when he looks at his email (typically now this is 4 times a day) Charlie uses Instant Messaging

9. Jo meets lots of people as a consequence of her work – and knows it is important to manage her network ! “ I have a pile of business cards on my desk from a recent conference – I’ll aim to add the details to my Contacts list in Outlook before they become out-of-date.” Why ? Charlie says “ More and more colleagues are using a tool called LinkedIn . You don’t need to keep their details up-dated. Moreover, you get to see who else they network with (and thus could put you in contact with) “ With the apparent increased pace of change, everyone seems to be changing roles more often. It makes it so much harder to keep on top of the changes.” “ Global working means I probably work with twice as many folk as I did a couple of years ago – I struggle to put names to faces when we meet again, how embarrassing .”

10. Charlie has a LinkedIn profile…… … and so do most of his current / former colleagues and many of his external contacts !

11. Jo uses the internet occasionally in her work, but does revisit several intranet pages on a regular basis. “ I recently checked the websites I’d previously listed under ‘Favourites’ on my Internet Explorer desktop – some had added some really cool new information, others were just as they were 3 months ago” Why ? Charlie says “ Why not let technology do the hard work – life is too short to be checking web pages to see IF they have changed Let me tell you about RSS feeds . Once you start tracking blogs this will really come into its own ! “ I mostly use websites for reference purposes, for example to check a policy or the cost of a product. Often when I check there has been no change ! It would be good to know when such websites are updated – that way I’d probably trust that there had been no change unless I’d heard otherwise.”

12. Charlie and his friends use RSS a lot! TA Newsletter

13. Jo uses the internet occasionally in her work, but feels there will be other valued external sites she has failed to identify. “ I have a reasonably long list of ‘Favourites’ on my Internet Explorer desktop – but I keep asking myself are these really the best resources out there ?” Why ? Charlie says “ If you want to be a good corporate citizen then consider tags as a way to share your bookmarks. When others do the same, you then benefit from their book-marking insights “ Given the volume of stuff on the web, either I find myself going back to a few tried and tested sites or relying on Google – and the first couple of pages of Google at that. I’m sure I miss loads of information that could be helpful in my work”

14. Charlie stores & tags all his bookmarks on the intranet … . everyone can see them….and he can see everyone else’s

15. Enterprise2.0 ….. initiated by those passionate about web2.0 and implemented by people like Charlie …. and Jo ???

16. Adapted from ‘ meet Charlie ’ (as created by Scott Gavin) by John Castledine http:// www.linkedin.com/in/johnbcastledine 2008