Niall's book, Enterprise 2.0 How social software will change the future of work, finally was made available and I must admit I am a fan !!!

Finally, we have in one single piece a detailed and careful approach to "Enterprise 2.0", aka social software for the enterprise, crafted for anyone working behind the firewall. Considering all the web content, good and bad, we had to digest over the last 2 years, this book really is very good news. Another good point that needs to be raised is that not all future adopters are used to read blogs. A book is a good way to evangelize non "headshifted" people.

What I particularly appreciate is the balance between theory, use cases and methodology. The reader gets useful advices to make it happen in his/her own environment while at the same time gets background info to gain more insights.

It's a smart book to make people smarter, not like the usual management recipe books made of 20% ideas and 80% case studies which at the end of the day make you copy-pasting a 3 year old working example that eventually makes you fail (it's all about context, stupid!).

Two points of progress (for the sake of it!)

-        The "Social Software in the Enterprise" bit should have gone deeper. That's my own opinion based on my personal experience and background. Niall's has different ones and sees elements from a different, more B2C, angle. The social media gang @ Headshift probably are more in line with Niall than me. He also had to pay attention to the overall equilibrium of the book (a real constraint when drafting a book).

-        The underlying "Gen Y" hypothesis. I know that's the trend in the sector to use this as a justification for adoption (here is an example), but I personally don't like this spontaneism. It's too old-fashioned and dangerous.

Have a read, keep it by yourself when you are to build or review your social software strategy.