Enterprise 2.0 generational divide largely a myth, study finds

Don't blame the old fogeys if your enterprise Web 2.0 efforts fail to launch. Young people may be demanding more collaborative Web technologies in the workplace, but the young/old divide is largely a myth, researchers said Tuesday at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston.

"Some zealots say if you don't have young people in your company you won't get it. Our survey found that's not true," said Carl Frappaolo, vice president of market intelligence at AIIM. The nonprofit content-management research firm presented findings from a survey of 441 workers of all ages and from many industries.

Ironically enough, TechWeb's Enterprise 2.0 conference was just about the only place in Boston where collaborative Web technologies were hard to access Tuesday morning and early afternoon. The wireless network set up for the show suffered problems for several hours, limiting Internet connectivity for many attendees.

But Frappaolo and colleague Dan Keldsen, AIIM's director of market intelligence, needed only their voices and a PowerPoint deck to describe their 90-page report titled "Enterprise 2.0: Agile, Emergent & Integrated." 

People ages 51 and older are just as likely as their younger counterparts to champion Web 2.0 technologies inside enterprises, they said. While this could be because of older people more often being in leadership positions, Frappaolo and Keldsen found the percentages significant. About 56% of "boomers" – those age 51 and over - consider themselves champions of Enterprise 2.0 within their organizations, compared with 45% of "millennials," those people ages 25 to 35. Among Gen Xers (ages 36 to 49), 58% consider themselves Enterprise 2.0 champions.

"Survey analysis confirmed that generational affiliation does impact attitudes and experience with Enterprise 2.0, but not as much as one might be inclined to believe," the AIIM report states. "Unlike Web 2.0 - which is very 'social' in the purest sense - Enterprise 2.0 is about 'socialness' in support of specific business goals and objectives. Thus, in situations where Enterprise 2.0 can illustrate a potential benefit to the success of an organization, tenured business professionals are more apt to place a premium on it."

More proof that age doesn't matter as much as people think comes from a survey question asking how critical Enterprise 2.0 is to an organization's success. About 38% of boomers said collaborative Web technologies are "significant" to achieving business goals, compared with 35% of Gen Xers and 31% of millennials.

However, none of the boomers think Enterprise 2.0 is "imperative" to success, or a must-have, in other words. One out of 10 Gen Xers call Enterprise 2.0 an imperative to having success, and 6% of millennials agree.

The biggest differences found by AIIM are based not on age but corporate culture. Organizations are more likely to bring Web 2.0 inside the firewall when they are already devoted to so-called "knowledge management" principles such as information sharing, user empowerment, distributed decision making and open collaboration.