Web 2.0: McKinsey Global Survey Results

The latest review by McKinsey, which can be downloaded from their website after registering, shows that Web 2.0 is becoming more popular with organizations in their now annual survey of nearly 2000 companies. Web services, blogs, RSS feeds and wikis are the most popular tools, with the main internal uses being to manage knowledge, foster collaboration, enhance the company culture and training. However, there is a wide variety of levels of satisfaction with Web 2.0 technologies, along with marked regional variations. Asia Pacific respondent were most satisfied with Web 2.0 with Latin American companies least satisfied. The main barriers to take up were that companies didn't understand the financial benefits, didn't have a supportive culture or sufficient incentives to experiment with Web 2.0. Its main HR impact seems to be that it has changed the way companies hire and retain people, though one has to question the way in which they addressed these issues. Interestingly, nearly half of respondents suggested that Web 2.0 had not changed the company nor the way it was organized. As one commentator suggested on our CIPD discussion space on Web 2.0 and HR, these findings are in line with our own preliminary thoughts in the field and with the CIPDs research on Web 2.0 and recruitment.

These surveys give an indication of what is happening, but respondents can only respond to the quality of questions asked. I'm not so sure these questions are as well constructed as they could be in the McKinsey survey. Any thoughts?