RSS in the Enterprise

I have touched upon this subject in the past in my blog and even recently with a little bit about my personal use of RSS. RSS as a delivery mechanism is a powerful way for a user to take control of the content they want to ingest and use in their daily lives. The user can extend beyond what they typically read quite easily. i think the key today is end-user control with opt-in/opt-out. That model might change as the enterprise looks at ways to use RSS to deliver 'must have' content to users-but the real value will be in the user retaining most of control of what they see. That control can be user initiated-i subscribe to a RSS feed- or pushed i get this RSS feed because of who i am, who my customers are or what my management or team members want me to see.

There is an interesting conversation about Enterprises blocking RSS that is going on at Shel Israel's Blog in which i have participated in and you can also. See my comments among others.

Last week, i was at the Delphi Group's 'Information Intelligence Summit' in Phoenix. Factiva was a sponsor and i lucked out with a free pass. As i put my thoughts together this week i will probably share more of what i heard in this blog.

One of the keynote speakers was Matthew Glotzback- Google Enterprise-Product Manager. He talked about the evolution of the 'office worker' to the 'knowledge workers' to the 'Self Directed Innovator' in the workplace. A interesting concept to think about. My thoughts on some of what he was speaking about is that the 'Self Directed Innovator' is going to want tools that allows them to innovate using the various information sources they have available or are producing. RSS aggregators,Wikis, social applications etc. are going to be the tools of choice for these innovators not the existing enterprise applications they have access to and are told they need to use. Those companies that encourage the use of what i think is being call web 2.0 applications will come up on top- much like those that encourage blogging and other methods of becoming a participant in the market place.

In the same vain of the work/life discussion that came up on Shel Israel's blog- Glotzback pointing to the value of Google inside the enterprise brought up similar concept that our home lives and work lives-mix all the time and the tools we use should also. Like me, i assume that many corporate users of RSS- extend our use and knowledge capture about our clients, industries and even our own companies- beyond the work day. Whether i am at the office reading my bloglines feeds or sitting at home on my personal computer the universe i look at is the same.

I wonder how deep Shel Israel's new book about Web 2.0 startups will look at the users and how it is affecting the enterprises using these applications. Is Web 2.0 good for enterprises and what will be the adoption rates-quicker then blogging? I am sure others are discussing so if you 'see' a conversation point me there!