NRCan uses Web 2.0 to improve collaboration

In his posting Canadian Government Launches Internal Wiki, Library Boy points to an interesting article in a magazine I had never heard of, Networked Government .ca

Challenges of change

Breaking down barriers to create an open and collaborative work environment comes with barriers of its own:

§         Fear of the unknown
§         Varying rates of acceptance
§         Trust
§         Reluctance to change
§         Indifference
§         Official languages
§         Inappropriate use. 

There is risk in each, but none as great as the risk of not proceeding.   

For employees reluctant to contribute their content on an open forum, the team encouraged them to use the Wiki to share non-sensitive information only. Allowing groups to create their own separate work spaces on the Wiki would only perpetuate the very barriers collaborative technologies were trying to break down – limited knowledge sharing at an enterprise level and lack of integrated content. Organizing information based on organizational hierarchy was purposely not replicated to allow subject classification structures based on content to emerge.

Collaborative Revolution - Networked Government .ca - October 2008

Italics in above article mine.

In strongly hierarchical organisations, such as some libraries, people often identify more with their group or organisational silo than with the entire enterprise.  Also these silos may represent areas in which specific control or budget is allocated, and it is traditional corporate culture not to want to share control or resources.

Enterprise Architecture and enterprise-wide collaboration can try to break through some of these silos, but as the above article states: "Changing the culture is much more difficult than implementing new technology."