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There’s a bit of talk right now about a new study from KPMG about Enterprise 2.0–the title pretty much tells it all: Fad or Future.  I agree with Wirearchy that most of the report seems amazingly shallow, and I’ll go one step further: dated.  They’re still pointing to Dresdner Kleinwort, German banking company, as the poster child for enterprise wiki use. It’s a good story, and a home run for SocialText, but it’s no longer the only successful story out there.

Wirearchy discusses a very interesting question: Why aren’t major consulting firms very good at web 2.0 consulting?  Is it, as he suggests, a personality problem?  The suit-of-armor inability to “get it” with regard to new social media?  I’m not sure, but I do notice the same issue.  I’ve thought for a while that it’s because of the standard product base.  Big firm consultants have a product line, sort of like styling salons, that they recommend for all kinds of corporate ills.  Social media and Enterprise 2.0 products are just not an easy fit.  Perhaps they can’t really even imagine themselves suggesting with a serious face that a company use TikiWiki for their knowledge sharing application.  I know personally that my credibility has been viewed askance simply because the names of these applications, and the fact that anyone can use them, are suspicious attributes of a “product line.”

Maybe the big consulting firms have not successfully figured out the marketing angle, the sales angle.  Because for sure, there isn’t the standard consulting vocabulary for Enterprise 2.0 out there–and without the consulting verbiage, where are you?

Another possibility that strikes me is the absolutely necessary component of corporate culture change.  The software is easy, the adoption is a real trick and requires all kinds of skill and experience on the part of the consultant in order to make adoption successful.  Are the big firms good at that kind of hands-on culture stuff?  Don’t know.

Anyway, the disconnect between enterprise 2.0 and the big firms is an awfully intriguing question, and I for one hope they stay just clueless just a little while longer.