Crossing the Chasm with Enterprise Wikis

2007 was a good year for CustomerVision. We added a lot of new customers to our growing list of BizWiki users and we continued to lead the way with innovative features designed to encourage wiki adoption by mainstream business users.

But the thing I’m most proud about CustomerVision is that we’ve managed to translate the innovations found in technologies such as wikis and social networking into a product that’s adopted by mainstream users and that produces vital customer results for customers who would otherwise have not been able to tap these technologies.

As a small company we were excited to be included this year in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Collaboration but disappointed that we did not score higher on the Visionary curve. The companies that tended to score well were west coast companies that are located in the heart of the Silicon Valley echo chamber and who are quick to integrate a variety of the cutting edge concepts percolating around them from the world of “Web 2.0”.

I think this perception that it’s visionary to lead the charge in integrating the latest and greatest “web 2.0” concepts is created by a fundamental misunderstanding of what’s required to be visionary in this space.

There’s no doubt that our west coast competitors are full of smart people and are close to major sources of innovation but these concepts are not gaining near as much interest among the majority of mainstream adopters as the technology merits.

Following the model (outlined in Geoffrey Moore’s famous book, Crossing the Chasm) the market is made up of innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards. There are some great options in the world of enterprise wikis for the innovators and potentially the early adopters but CustomerVision is unique in creating a product for the early majority and late majority or what most people would consider “mainstream” adopters.

If you look around for case studies documenting real world wiki success stories you’ll find lots of examples of software development teams, documentation groups or technology companies that are getting powerful benefits from the use of wiki technology. But where the industry really needs innovation and vision is in communicating and demonstrating that this technology can solve critical problems for mainstream business users in marketing, sales and support roles.