Web 2.0 for the CIO

You may have heard the term Web 2.0 and been unclear what it means. Then again, you're reading this blog, so chances are you're part of the enlightened who have already embraced blogs, which are part of Web 2.0.

Web 1.0 was all about web pages maintained centrally. Content was published by corporate communications/public affairs.

Web 2.0 is all about collaboration, everyone as publisher and complete interactivity with networks of associates. Here's a brief primer on Web 2.0

A blog is a specialized form of web-based content management specifically designed for creating and maintaining short articles published by anyone who wants to be an author. Although blogging is not a real time collaboration tool, it is a remarkable way to spread information. For example, my blog had 7,429 views by 4,611 visitors over the past week. As an external relations tool for communicating information, proposing an idea, or marketing a concept, blogs work extremely well. Blogger, WordPress and TypePad are leading blogging sites.

A wiki is software that enables users to create, edit, and link web pages easily. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. They are being installed by businesses to provide knowledge management and are extremely useful for a community of authors to create shared documentation. At Harvard Medical School, we use open source wiki software called Twiki as an enterprise application.

A forum is a threaded discussion with multiple participants that is not real time. Entries can be read and responded to at any time. At Harvard, we created our own threaded discussion forums and these are used for strategic planning activities by a diverse group of geographically dispersed participants. There are variations on forums such as Dell's IdeaStorm (a Software as a Service application hosted by salesforce.com), which Dell implemented to get input from customers and employees about new strategic priorities. Users post ideas and anyone can vote to support the idea, raising its score/relevance in the forum.

Chat is a real time, synchronous discussion group with many participants. Old fashioned Internet Relay Chat has been largely replaced by group Instant Messaging chat. Although Instant Messaging is often a 1 on 1 conversation, most IM clients support inviting multiple participants to message as a group. For example, Google's Gmail includes Instant Messaging chat and Apple's iChat works well with AOL Instant Messanging to support group Instant Messaging. Chat requires that all participants must be online together. Forums, as described above, can be more convenient because not all parties involved in the discussion have to be online at the same time.

A unique collaboration tool called Gobby, enables multiple authors to edit text together in realtime. Document respositories such as Microsoft Sharepoint, Documentum and many content management systems (CMS) support sharing of documents. I've used Sharepoint as a document repository to coordinate the nation's healthcare data standardization process at HITSP.

Social Networking tools include sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace . Most social networking services provide a collection of various ways for users to interact, such as chat, messaging, email, video, voice chat, file sharing, blogging, and discussion groups.. To test the value of these services for collaboration, I established a Facebook, LinkedIn, and Second Life account. I currently have 30 friends on Facebook, 78 Contacts on LinkedIn and a Second Life Avatar named Geek Destiny.

Facebook is great for building collaborative groups. LinkedIn is great if you're looking for a job. Second Life is a fine virtual reality environment , although its business applications are limited . Here's a great article from the UK Guardian about Social Networking tools.

Everyone who knows me understands that I'm very transparent about my successes and failures. I want to admit publicly that I did not embrace Web 2.0 fast enough. At Harvard, we do provide easy to use content management for departmental websites (not individuals), online document sharing, calendars, news and forums. We also host dozens of Wiki sites. However, we do not provide web-based IM and we're just starting to deploy social networking. As part of the new Dean's strategic planning process, I have recommended an immediate, wholesale adoption of Web 2.0 throughout Harvard Medical School. My report to the Dean notes:

"Immediately expand our enteprise intranet sites (eCommons.med.harvard.edu and mycourses.med.harvard.edu) to include collaboration services, instant messaging, Webex meetings, CONNECTS (a match making service for equipment, techniques, and scientists), SHRINE (a means of data mining across all Harvard affiliates), and web content management that enables anyone in the Harvard community to be a publisher."

At BIDMC, I'm relaunching our intranet using a commercial Content Management System called SiteCore which includes numerous Web 2.0 collaboration features such as Wikis, Blogs, Forums, Project Rooms, Collaborative Project Management, Quick Polls, and Project Rooms with Whiteboards.

I spent the last year focusing on integrating our web-based applications and achieved a number of important benefits, including single sign on for all clinical applications. My mistake was in not also focusing on the individual as content publisher. 2008 will include a major push to catch up and broadly deploy Web 2.0 collaboration and publishing tools throughout all my organizations.