Carson advises that companies interested in adopting Enterprise 2.0 tools:

• Create Web 2.0 awareness
• Locate supporters in the company
• Make friends with IT
• Approach senior management with a proposal
• Work closely with business units
• Gather and distribute best practices
• Feed the open mouths; don't force it
• Be patient because change takes time

Pfizer began its Enterprise 2.0 initiative a year ago when Simon Revell, then a technical lead and now manager of Enterprise 2.0, was frustrated with his team's communications methods. In July 2006, he and a some colleagues interested in Web 2.0 technologies started a blog that was open to all employees.

Then the small band of Web 2.0 champions, which met over lunch to develop plans for the Enterprise 2.0 efforts, held a week-long conference for company employees last November to discuss how blogs, wikis and social networking could be used at Pfizer. There were 300,000 hits on the conference Web site, which broadcast the event live, and offered blogs and podcasts to employees worldwide.

Since then, the company has started an online community for employees to learn how they can use Web 2.0 tools in their parts of the company. The company also has also launched a laboratory for testing new Enterprise 2.0 technologies.

Revell said the success of his grassroots effort around Enterprise 2.0 came to the fore a few weeks ago when he was asked to present information about several of the projects to the company's IT executives. "We're getting so many doors opened to us now and so many opportunities to try out this stuff," he said. "So many people are keen to look at it and examine it."