The
Internet is the most important digital phenomenon yet, but we are just
beginning to understand the human and social dimensions that drive it. Web
2.0 is still in its infancy. Yet, it demonstrated its capabilities in today’s
online social networks. It was found that SMEs must change their structures
dramatically to be able to participate in a self-organizing system. With
limited budgets and resources, SMEs need to establish a democratic and
open enterprise to be able to be part of Collaborative Ecosystem.
Web 2.0
does not refer to a must-have set of technologies or technical design patterns.
Any browser-based software that provides users with read, create, and update
and delete capabilities of its contents is arguably Web 2.0 software. Web
2.0 provides additional technologies such as Blogs, Posts, Wikis and Podcasts,
for which advance the evolution of new open economy.
O’Reilly
Radar (2006) believes that the key for long lasting success of any invention is
its user’s participation, where users may be far more innovative than the
inventors themselves[1]. Breck (2007) proved that order may
emerge from chaos, and a network of random parts may form a new pattern, so the
whole (e.g. Open Economy) becomes more than the sum of the parts (e.g. SMEs).
Moor (2003) introduced an emerging new political superpower (i.e. the
collective action of millions of Web 2.0 participants), and refers to it as
"emergent democracy". It represents the effectiveness of the
collective mind of participants that creates a new form of political movement.
He also stressed that this phenomenon could never occur without the Web 2.0
attractiveness of participation.
SMEs with
an open and collaborative enterprise may group together and establish a open
collaborative habitat. SMEs can be migrating from one habitat to another
in the Collaborative Ecosystem to maximize their value network. These
migration movements can be triggered by the service consumers. The Figure
1 visualize this movement across habitats.
Figure 1 Service Migration Model Adopted from (Briscoe and Wilde, 2006)
If this proposition is accepted, SMEs who operate based on open and collaborative enterprise can be part of self organizing and a collaborative ecosystem, this ecosystem may accelerate Collaborative Economy evolution.
