From the editor

Adapt or die. Harsh words, but true for just about anything in life and business is no different.

Over the past year, we have really begun to see just how the evolution of the Internet and technology continues to change the way we do business. Just because we’ve become accustomed to doing things digitally, it doesn’t mean that we’ve arrived at our e-business destination, though. It’s more than about just transacting online, connecting your laptop wirelessly and pushing mail on a BlackBerry. It might not feel like it to a lot of people, but that’s already yesterday’s news. Keeping up means more than just rolling out the technology; increasingly, it means understanding in a broader sense what it all means and using your imagination to apply it to your own growth as a business in a digital world.

Web 2.0 technology continues to push the envelope for the way we do business. It’s everything we imagined the Web could be when we first dialled-up, and it’s nowhere near finished. As you get to grips with the realities and possibilities of real-time collaboration, ad-hoc social networking and all that collective intelligence can offer (including the inverse lowest-common-denominator thinking that can choke you) the demands of not only providing and maintaining a solid infrastructure to support it but also the tools to make sure you’re making sense of all the information have never been higher.

Working more efficiently can bring a downside of greater expectations on the performance front. Your customers, used to streamlined service, now expect more of you. They’re using social networking sites like Facebook and Flickr to interact with others, trade virtually and share photographs; they want to know why they can or can’t do the same when they interact with you. Whether it’s e-procurement, facilitating employee collaboration or even cutting costs (and, while you’re at it, your carbon footprint) by communicating without having to get on a plane, e-business 2.0 is well and truly here and bringing as many challenges as it does possibilities. How will you be using it?

Janet Paterson

Publisher and Editor: ITWeb Informatica



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