Knowledge Socialism: The Personal Risk and the Organizational Bonanza of Enterprise 2.0

In this article I will describe a problem that may be the biggest barrier to the adoption of Enterprise 2.0 applications among companies. I will try to offer a solution.

The two things every rich businessman knows

My boss, a very experienced and savvy businessman, once asked me a question:

“Do you know what are the two most important things every rich businessman knows?”

After confessing that I didn’t know, he said, “The first thing is, if you know of a way to make money, keep it to yourself!”

“And what is the second thing?” I asked eagerly.

At that he just smiled!

It took me a couple of minutes to understand that he had just pulled one over my head. By not answering the second question (and by his being much wealthier than I) he had demonstrated the importance of keeping one’s knowledge to oneself.

How to keep your knowledge to yourself and become rich and famous

Imagine that you are a salesperson and that you have just found a secret benefit of your company’s product. It is such a huge benefit that customers can’t open their wallet fast enough when they hear about it. It has tripled your sales in the last month. But the best thing about this benefit is this: None of your fellow salespeople know about it.

What would you do?

  1. Schedule a meeting and tell everyone about it, or
  2. Keep it to yourself

Telling everyone about it might make you the company hero for a month; you might even get a bonus.

Keeping it to yourself will

  1. Make you the leading sales person
  2. Triple your salary
  3. Make you a prime candidate for the position of sales manager

The average corporate employee will undoubtedly keep this “tip” a secret. This is the peak of knowledge capitalism. However . . .

Knowledge socialism (Enterprise 2.0): the most profitable thing your company can do

The flip side is that the best thing for your company is that you tell all the salespeople about the hidden benefit. It is ironic, but when it comes to knowledge, the best way to make a company profitable is to act like a socialist. It’s better for the company if everyone share their knowledge freely (within the company).

It is in the best interest of your company that you blog about the product benefit and/or open a Wiki page to explore the benefit and think of ways to incorporate it into the company’s marketing and sales effort. The sales of your company could triple!

And herein lays the rub. Sharing knowledge (Knowledge Socialism/Enterprise 2.0) is overwhelmingly important for the company and is very much against the employee’s personal financial interest.

How to align an employee’s gain with knowledge socialism

To successfully integrate knowledge socialism/Enterprise 2.0 into the enterprise, management must find a way to make it in the employee’s best (financial) interest to share his knowledge with the company. This might be very difficult. A “tip”, after all, can triple the employee’s salary and make him next in line for his boss’s position. A “tip” is worth a lot, but the company can’t afford (in more ways than one) to pay out huge bonuses to people with ideas. But . . .

Companies can create a reward structure for thinkers—a structure that benefits thinkers by paying them more, improving their position in the company and increasing their reputation both inside and outside the company.

The person or company that will fully understand how to do this will become immensely successful. Let’s hope they don’t keep this knowledge to themselves.

This is the first installment from a series of articles about the adoption of Enterprise 2.0 in organizations.

Related reading

How to use Blogs in the Workplace

A Technology Flip Test: Introducing Channels in a World of Platforms

Posted on January 31, 2007 by Yoav Ezer 
Filed Under Collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, Methodology, Office 2.0, Web 2.0

Comments

2 Responses to “Knowledge Socialism: The Personal Risk and the Organizational Bonanza of Enterprise 2.0”

  1. PDF to Excel conversion and other stuff » How to ignite behind-the-firewall blogging on February 19th, 2007 11:43 am

    [...] Knowledge sharing and collaboration can create amazing results in the enterprise. They can dramatically increase sales, improve productivity, boost morale and much more. If you disagree with me or doubt this, go ahead and read the previous article in this series (but come back). [...]

  2. PDF to Excel conversion and other stuff » Wiki adoption in the enterprise on February 21st, 2007 10:41 am

    [...] As I already wrote, I believe it boils down to this: [...]

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