Jevon MacDonald has some interesting predictions about Enterprise 2.0 in 2007. He has thrown down the gauntlet and asked me to come up with a few predictions of my own:

Things that will happen
1) The Big 4 will lose $2 Billion in Sox Revenue

The big 4 audit / consulting firms are going to collectively lose in excess of $2 Billion in annual revenue related to SOX as Enterprise 2.0 technology guts the need to have consultants document ad hoc work flows and the associated controls. CEOs will not longer need to hire an army of consultants to document their SOX process when Enterprise 2.0 tools make companies more efficient and more secure by increasing lateral communication while radically improving controls and audit trails.

#2) DIY software is going to slam Accenture, IBM and Cap Gemini

The advent of tools that facilitate end user development of web applications will take over $1 Billion in annual revenue away from technology body shops such as Accenture, IBM and Cap Gemini.

There is a lining to this cloud for the Big 4 audit / consulting firms. As the low value add SOX revenue goes away, some consulting shops will offer Enterprise 2.0 related services. For example, I have personally seen several instances where a major financial institution has spent in excess of $1.5 million automating a spreadsheet. They banks and trading companies were forced to hire expensive consultants who both understood the domain and knew how to produce code. Now, with tools such as Excel Services, which automate the process of writing a system to automate a spreadsheet, the only consulting know how that will still be needed relates to deep domain expertise.

#3) MS Word is going to start to die

At least 10 members of the Fortune 500 are going to forbid the use of MS Word as they transition to a combination of user build, xml backed forms and applications, blogs, wikis and other Enterprise 2.0 tools. Microsoft does have an interesting desk top tool already in place to help with the transition. It is called Windows Live Writer. The only two programs I seriously miss on the Mac are Windows Live Writer and Picasa.

#4) A video on YouTube will expose an Enron size scandal

YouTube already has had a profound impact on George Allen, Sony (via Dell and Apple exploding batteries), and Michael Richards. It is bound to eventually hit large companies.

The lesson is simple: If you are a senior executive, if you are giving a speech, if you are out in public, if you are at a bar, realize that your behavior and your comments can be caught by camera phones and quickly made public. There is even more incentive to always do the right thing.

Things I hope will happen

#5) IBM is going to finally get over it’s Lotus Notes Hangover

IBM is going to see the light, dump their plans for Lotus Notes Hangover…er Hannover, buy Zimbra or Joyent, itensil and SocialText and finally start to provide their clients with a decent, forward thinking, user friendly next generation collaborative tool. Yes, it will be a big jump away from Lotus Notes, but Apple’s success with the jump to OS/X proves that sometimes, it does make sense to start from scratch. Lotus Notes is now 22 years old. Maybe it is time.

#6) The term “Activity Centric Blogs” and “Wikiflow” are going to take-off

OK. Maybe those specific terms are not going to make it. However, we collectively need a term to describe the difference between the way that blogging and wikis are used by consumers and the way that they will be used within a large organization. An Activity Centric Blog is a blog that is focused on a specific piece of work that you are going. A Project blog or a People Page are good examples. People will use these tools in fundamentally different ways. You cc the project blog on important emails instead of cc’ing the team.

Wikiflow is a term invented by itensil. The problem with wikis within the enterprise today is that it is difficult to know when to go to a page to update it. People do not want to have the added burden of being forced to monitor wiki pages for updates. Wikiflow solves that problem by adding workflow to wikis. It solves the problem of “how to I get my people to use the wiki?”

#7) Steve Johnson’s book Emergence will become a top selling business hit

Enterprise 2.0 is emergence software. If you want to understand why this is a good thing and how emergent organizations work, read this book.

Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software