Microsoft bringing Web 2.0 to the mainstream

This post was written by Jacob McNulty

My wife is in sales and I’ve been watching helplessly for the last week or so as she writes/compiles a massive proposal for a potential client.  She’s worked until 5am more than once and is counting on doing it again tonight.  Many of these hours are spent in version control, waiting for others to complete a section and send it in or collecting the edits of multiple people.

I talked to her yesterday about ways to ease the collaboration amongst her team - a wiki being at the top of the list.  She told me they were using SharePoint but it was limited b/c only one person could work on the document at any given time.  SharePoint is a Microsoft product, though, so they have no choice but to use it and don’t have any wiki options.

While the next few weeks are still sure to be hellish for my wife and her team, the future is looking bright.  In this month’s edition of Fast Company, Robert Scoble writes about Microsoft’s Office Live Workspace - their entrance into the Web 2.0 world.  This is great news b/c it’s bringing these technologies to the mainstream and making them accessible to the vast majority of the corporate workforce.

Scoble is “betting Office Live will be a gateway drug for workgroups and companies to explore the full possibilities of office 2.0–and not just Microsoft’s products” and I’m sure he’ll win that bet.  I’m hoping so b/c I would like a greater population to have easy access to the features that will be provided with this.  Some of the roadblocks we’ve encountered in projects that require the use of these informal learning tools certainly include lengthy discussions with the IT department on the compatability of external vendors with their in-house products (usually Microsoft) - not having that as an issue will make the process smoother for all involved. 

Tags: business training, corporate training, development, informal learning, learning, learning strategies, organizational learning, professional development, Web 2.0, Wiki, workforce development