Musings 2.0 …softer challenges of Web 2.0
Bob primarily dealt with hi-tech service firms and clients, and was pretty updated on technologies himself, so I asked him if he saw a threat to his ilk from Web 2.0 technologies and information exchanges sprouting on the web. His answer was a vehement no!
I too realized that my question was a bit far fetched: Just as technology advisory firms and analysts continue to have a place, deal consultants continue to thrive primarily due to their offline contacts and networks. The technology to make the leap from offline to online mode certainly exists. Case in point is the popularity of Linkedin [plug: my profile] a popular professional networking site that claims to attract Digerati who don’t want to be lurking on myspace or facebook.
Though they have become excellent recruiting tools, they haven’t really been able to move beyond this paradigm. For instance, the Wall Street “Journal story Job References You Can't Control” focuses on the recruitment aspects of Linkedin. The paradigm of online recruitment is even older than Web 1.0, going back to an era before the dot.com boom (remember how monster.com or dice.com were 'hot' even a decade ago?). At least in this illustration, 'web 2.0' seems to be the same old wine in a new bottle… Of course, there are perhaps other cooler examples that I need to catch up on.
Which takes us back to what Bob was alluding to: the technologies that enable collaboration certainly exist, and web 2.0 tools are ‘cool’ … but the paradigm of sharing insight and knowledge for a quid-pro-quo that deal architects, consultants and analysts thrive-on is yet to move to the cyberworld. And when that happens…
