The paper describes a networking platform called iBridge, implemented by the administrative office of Zhongguancun Haidian Science Park (HSP) in Beijing, China, to foster exchanges of ideas and innovation. The paper also discusses some of the challenges involved in adoption.Key Points of Interest:

• Innovation is the key to sustained competitiveness
• Traditional Knowledge Management (KM) systems do a poor job of capturing and making visible the tacit knowledge of knowledge workers
• Need to address ramifications of Web2.0 tools from technical & cultural view

My opinion:
This paper is interesting for me, for a number of reasons. It reaffirms the fact that innovation is the key to sustaining competitive advantage, that traditional KM system is doing very poorly, and that companies looking into adopting Web2.0 tools need to consider technical and cultural ramifications of such systems.

The author explained that traditional KM systems is too resource intensive, counter-intuitive, and ultimately ineffective. I tend to agree with the points above: traditional KM systems are controlled using a top-down approach, and in most cases the process of contribution is tangled in bureaucracy. In order to contribute some material, it must go through a series of review process. This creates an unnecessary bottleneck and double handling of tasks. Contribution should be fast and easy, and this is where Web2.0 tools come in, it gives the power to everyone to play an active role.

The other good points that the author brought up is the ramifications of adopting Web2.0 tools, not only from a security point of view, but also from a cultural point of view. What’s interesting is that the subject of the research is located in China. Web 2.0 has always been based on the principle of openness and transparency, it’s unclear how successful iBridge would be considering China’s harsh record on censorship. However, it needs to be noted that the author did point out that President Hu Jintao acknowledges important changes need to happen to support China’s innovation strategy.

All and all, the paper provides an interesting view of Web2.0 adoption in China, no less that this is a government project. iBridge will need to be followed up as the paper studied iBridge far too early in it’s life to provide a useful insight.