The Role of an Enterprise 2.0 - Manager

collaborative work of a generalist with pronounced business comprehension within a cross-functional team

Anja Wittenberger

This was one of the open space topics at the Enterprise 2.0-Summit 2010 in Frankfurt am Main. The probably most important European conference in the field of Enterprise 2.0 was filled with very helpful input and talks with other E2.0 experts. During the second day of the conference an open space took place with the leading question “What is the role of an E2.0-Manager?” and “Which tasks does he have and what kind of skills does he need?”

This text will give you a short summary of the outcomes of this open space topic.

At first, we clarified for the whole group that an E2.0-Manager is not a community manager and has a different range of responsibility. In details this means, that the E2.0-Manager is the person, who clears the way of change for enterprise 2.0 within an organization or company. He furthermore is responsible for the community managers within the company.
However, this discussion brought the group to the question, if this person can really be the type of manager in the conventional way? The discussion group negated this.

In fact he or she is:

• an entrepreneur
• who understands different business perspectives and pursuits business objectives
• a visionary
• who is seeing the big picture and can inspire others to take on this way
• an integrator/ facilitator
• who is building connections between the different interests and opinions and is encouraging dialog
• a coordinator
• who is keeping track of the roadmap, is taking the project step-by-step to the next level and who is getting together the right people to make the project successful
• an active listener
• who is helping different interests of people to become evident and with it is helping to form a common understanding
• a leader
• who is seeing the different strengths of people and is able to give motivating feedback
• a problem solver
• who is able to think and communicate solutions oriented 
• a member of steering board for the strategic E2.0-initiative in the organization
• ...

The E2.0-Manager brings experts together and enables the network and collaboration flow.

To be able to do so the person needs to use skills and expertise like:

• knowledge of the business
• visionary
• credibility
• communication skills
• leadership skills
• authority
• analytical skills
• sense of urgency
• ...

Yes, you can guess it, he or she is supposed to be superman or superwoman ;-)


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If the E2.0-Manager is supposed to do the tasks successfully, it has to be specified which kind of responsibility the person should have within the organization:

• knowlegde management (KM)
• innovation
• social tools
• employee satisfaction
• company strategy
• communication strategy
• ...

The last question from the discussion covered the topic of E2.0-adaption. It was said that there is no standard approach and the adaption of principles and culture of E2.0 differentiate from one company to another. The question is now, if a general model exists for the E2.0 and his/her working environment.

The following graphic shows that the role of an E2.0 manager does not only depend on his or her person, but also depends on the collaborative teamwork in a cross-functional team and where this position is embedded within the organization.


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This article is to be understood as the impulse of the upcoming discussion on positions, roles, and tasks for companies who decided to take on the change to an Enterprise2.0.

I look forward to all your comments and new articles.

Click on the picture or this Link for the mindmap

guestpost written by Anja Wittenberger (TwentyOne AG) works as a
Consultant for collaboration and communication in the enterprise2.0-way