Kathy Harris

I recently led a group of CIOs in a discussion on Web 2.0 and specifically, the skills needed to create and manage social features such as communities, crowdsourcing, opinions, new media and games. Several of the CIOs admitted that despite having some of these features in use (and requests for many more), they really don’t know where to begin developing the wide range of skills needed to create and maintain these websites. One CIO asked “What can I do? Replace my entire team with 20 year olds?”

The need for deep Web 2.0 skills is a common problem. Organizations clearly cannot create an entirely new organization or replace all their legacy business and technical skills and people.  So, assuming they will hire some Web 2.0 experts, can organizations also succeed in building the needed skills among their legacy and non-web teams?  I believe the answer is yes and there are some obvious places to begin - web communities are a good example.

To build and sustain a web community requires several areas of expertise:

• A deep understanding of processes and behaviors in complex collaboration
• A solid understanding of web architecture   
• The ability to invoke the technical features of a wide range of social computing tools.

Most organizations have legacy architects and software experts who’ve also developed a solid understanding of web architecture and functionality as a natural extension of their role. Organizations also have many process-oriented experts who’ve managed or facilitated complex work communities and in doing so, have gained an understanding of group behavior. For example, they know how to facilitate a collaborative work group; how to stimulate interest in a topic or issue; how to engage a large number of participants in conversation and collaboration; and how to ensure that aggressive participants don’t block other’s efforts or promote their own ideas too strongly. 

Organizations must identify these technical and process experts, link them up, and arm them with good training on web 2.0 tools. With these foundations, legacy experts can rapidly learn to build, launch and manage well-functioning communities. However, experimentation and innovation are absolute requirements for these teams to succeed — much remains to be learned about web communities and their behaviors. Web 2.0 teams must refine their skills in leveraging rich media, dealing with negative behaviors and mining community information. Even their vocabulary must evolve and change.  

So, look for compatible team members who bring solid, diverse legacy skills plus a penchant for learning and experimentation. With this foundation, they can quickly find their way in building and managing social web solutions. 

Do you agree? Can an organization with great legacy skills ramp up quickly to support Web 2.0 and social computing environments?