I suppose I could have titled this one “Achieving the Buy-In” or the “The 2.0 Value Proposition” but I decided this topic needs to be straightforward and hopefully as such, you’ll be able to use it as you see fit to aid in the education process in your organization.  So in no particular order, here are my top reasons why you should be using Web 2.0 now:

Innovation Without Funding
I don’t care if you want to call it a spending slump, an economic downturn or a recession, the bottom line is, our bottom lines are getting lower and lower these days.  I don’t know about you, but everyone I talk to has a budget that is bleeding worse than a wounded pig hopped up on anticoagulants.  Revenues are down, which likely translates to reductions in the current year and reduced targets for at least the next year or so.  So, here’s your chance to be the one who steps up and offers to do something new and innovative without any funding!  How often do we get to say that around here?  In most sectors we’ll be tightening belts and going into a maintenance mode, but with Web2.0 you can certainly do some innovative work at the same time! 

Fair warning though – the top will be a lonely place at the beginning.  Remember that know-it-all in school who always had to raise his or her hand every time the teacher asked a question?  Yep, that’ll be you.  (No offense intended to those of you who happened to be that particularly sagacious one).  But truth be told, after the initial bruising wears off and the brown -nosing insults abate, chances are your peers may jump on the 2.0 bandwagon which means good things for all!

Little-to-No Infrastructure Requirements
As an IT Director, I have to weigh each application on its business value AND the impact it will have on our infrastructure – our hardware, our people and our network.  Does it gel with our design standards?  Will it require additional training?  Will it require new software licensing?  And so on and so on.  Happily, with the improvements in security we’ve enjoyed in recent years, cloud computing and hosted software solutions have become a much more appealing proposition for an understaffed and undersupplied IT shop.  Nearly all Web2.0 tools are browser-based services, hosted and maintained externally and they require little no interaction at the PC level.  And yes I know all about security, web filtering and the dreaded “opening of ports”. Typically the sound Information Security practice is to lock everything down first and then open things up on a justifiable case-by-case basis.  To be clear, I am advocate of this practice, but I have had difficulty in finding evidence of how Web2.0 tools in general are potential security risks to desktop machines or the network, provided you are running effective malware protection. I encourage you to check out the Security section of the MuniGov2.0 Web site for more information regarding our research focused on the myths and facts related to security and 2.0.  I also welcome any and all feedback with an opposing view on the security topic – but please don’t flame me just for the sport of it – give us some factual and topical meat to chew on to further the discussion.

Easy Entry & Easy Exit
Web2.0 can be your own little petri dish.  Thanks to the easy implementation and zero cost model, 2.0 is ripe for experimentation and mash-up to see what works best for your organization.  Let loose your inner Frankenstein! Grab a few of those juicy buzzwords out of the toolbox, cobble them together, wind up and toss them on the wall and see what sticks.  Give things a fighting chance, but if they don’t work out, pull them out of the game and try something else.  You’ll have very little money invested and chances are the experience you gain from these initial forays will help you advance further with the next set of tools.  Remember that 2.0 tools are like Batman’s Utility Belt – a tool for every purpose and a purpose for every tool.  Chances are everything you need to meet your business needs is already out there is some form or another.  So jump in, mash it up – tweak and experiment, improve and share the love and experience (and the products) with the rest of us!

Resistance is Futile
Perhaps the strongest argument for Web2.0, in this humble correspondent’s opinion anyway, is that adopting Web2.0 is not a question of “if” but rather “when.”  These days, Web 2.0 is clearly assimilating into mainstream at light speed.  Check out the recent article from the Miami Herald, OMG, my MOM’s on Facebook!, if you doubt me on this one. And, Web2.0 is no longer just about having fun and staying connected. 

A few years ago, 2.0 was the narrow corner of web space occupied by a symbiotic (albeit polarized) pairing.  On one end of the spectrum we had the blogging technovisionaries sharing cerebral concepts of information sharing.  On the opposite end we had the college kids MySpacing their “Dude-I-Was-Soooo-Wasted” war stories and pictures for the glory and good of all.  (Perhaps some of us were members of one or both of these groups!) Like the two arms of a slingshot, these groups used Web2.0 like a rubber band to hurl their payload (i.e. the rest of us) from the static world into the fluid vision of today’s internet life.   The rest of us have caught up with the visionaries and this stuff is in common practice.  And here’s a real kicker – many of those inebriated educatees have architected this current course and are charting our future today. 

Universities across the globe have begun integrating 2.0 into the core curriculum of the classroom.  2.0 is required learning and an essential tool of scholastic success today.  And those digital native students that are so adept at it today will be our constituents tomorrow.  So, do you want to be in a spot where you’ve got to implement things because you are being “forced” to or would you rather do things on your own timeline and on your terms?

So there you have it – my $.02 on why you should get into this game now rather than later. Sure these benefits will evolve and perhaps change with time, right alongside 2.0 in general.  But for now, I think we’ve got a pretty compelling set of arguments to get things moving forward!  When it comes to the state of web affairs,  I tend to agree with some lines from the esteemed Mr. Buffet (Jimmy that is, not Warren) and his lovely writing partner Princess Leia herself.  (Come on now, you knew I had to work a Star Wars reference in here somewhere!)

I love the now (all the faces and places)
I love the now (all the rats and the races)
It’s the only place I’ve ever been
It’s the only way that I know how

Don’t talk about your superstitions
Don’t talk about your cats meow
But don’t talk about tomorrow tonight
I love the now

Virtually Yours,

Greever