Enterprise 2.0 vs. Social Business

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What are the distinctions between Social Business

"What are the distinctions between Social Business and Enterprise 2.0?" is a question on Quora in other words getting pretty hot. However the debate exploded in November while Enteprise 2.0 Santa Clara. And the roots of the debate are a bit older than that, going back to the Dachis Group's definition of "Social Business Design," which stands opposite to Anderw McAfee's definiton of Enterprise 2.0.

Some have framed the debate as in substance people vs. innovation. I don't think that's in effect what the debate is about. I think it's more often than not about differing factions of analysts and consultants wanting to control the debate.

If you look back at some of the best and deepest thinking around how to drive business performance and how to improve process, its actually written pursuant to this agreement the enterprise 2.0 moniker by the likes of Mike Gotta, Bertrand Dupperin, Gil Yehuda, Emanuele Quintarelli, Oscar Berg and until recently, Susan Scrupski and Dion Hinchcliffe. All then respected people in the space.

1. It excludes public and non-profit organizations. Government agencies, charities etc. should be social too.2. I believe the at once-generation enterprise should be about more than just social. In his post "Beyond Social: Read/Write in The Era of Internet of Things," ReadWriteWeb founder and co-editor Richard MacManus points to the explosion of non-human data on the web. I believe this is important. Mobility, cloud computing, analytics and big data are important technologies that aren't inherently social. At that time there's unified communications, which clearly has a social aspect nevertheless is hard to lump in with the rest of the typical enterprise social media tools.

Bit with using the term social enterprise

I've experimented a bit with using the term "social enterprise." That avoids excluding public and non-profit organizations, however it's on the whole social-only. And, as we were reminded today, has another meaning: businesses with a social mission.