I've seen the future of business, the 'Business User 2.0'.  It's my 6-year old son.  This might be a horrible case of parental pride but I think he is a great example of the new Generation 2.0 business user. He surfs the kid-friendly Internet, he regularly finds and beats online games (without any help from his daddy), and, most importantly, he cannot seem to understand why he can’t watch ‘Scooby Doo Meets Batman’ in any room in the house at any time he wants.  In other words, he’s tech-savvy, he’s very adept at picking up new apps, and he lives in a world where everything is available on-demand. I’d say he’s the future of every enterprise.

'Business User 2.0' might not be you but they are easy to identify.  They were born during the days of the first Macs, pre-teen during the rise of cable, teenagers during the early boom years of the Internet, and pushed through college in the days of XM radio.  It’s not unreasonable to say that you already have huge ranks of new hires in your organzation that are just like my son.  Just about every one of your 24-year old management trainees likely fits this fast-adopter, tech-savvy, on-demand personality profile.  And every one of them will reasonably expect that every piece of data they hear about in the company cafeteria would be available for mashing in a spreadsheet within minutes.  The same goes for your newest customer services reps.  Sales executives.  Logistics managers.  They are all the same.  All expect their metaphorical Scooby Doo data to be on their desktop instantly, without excuses.

The Business User 2.0 wave could pose real problems for organizations that aren't actively planning for them.  But in tough economic times like these it can be a heavy burden for enterprises, particularly that majority of organizations that spend 80%+ of their IT budget on maintenance of 10-, 20- and even 30-year old applications.  These are hardly apps that could be described as ‘agile’ and don't fit the 'anywhere, anytime' model.  Add to this that your typical 50+ year-old CXO who, as I heard one tech journalist put it recently, 'doesn’t have any empathy for this type of real-time, tech-heavy employee' (afterall, that CXO didn’t spend his entire childhood on a computer like his newest wave of employees did). 

But that CXO has to care. Because their Business User 2.0 employees are likely to be the most innovative.  And innovation is generally thought to be where the bulk of corporate growth comes from.  Every organization should put a big sign above their heads that says ‘Growth Happens Here’.  And these new users have other appreciable qualities. They are technically inclined, more than any prior generation of users by an order of magnitude.  Want them to learn a new application?  No problem, they do that every month on their Xbox360/PSP/Wii/iPhone.  Worried about them writing a macro?  Collaborating with others on a wiki?  Mashing their own data into their personal portlets?  Commenting on a blog?  No need to worry.  These are the kinds of things a savvy Facebook user knocks out all the time.

And therein lies the conundrum: Business User 2.0, unlike previous waves of employees, will do it themselves if they can’t get what they need from the corporate infrastructure. That’s good for them and maybe good for the organization overall…but bad for IT (they get marginalized), bad for corporate governance (hard to govern what you do not provide), and bad for the CXO (who can’t manage what he doesn’t provide or support). Business User 2.0 places entirely new, and perhaps greater, demands (just like my son!) from a technology and management point of view.  On the positive side, they also give you a much more flexible and adaptable workforce.  That's always good for the bottom line.

So, what is your organization doing to get ready for Business User 2.0?  Got a corporate Wiki yet?  What about a formal policy for Facebook?  Or a plan to provide secure, governed data services directly to mashup-hungry users?  Like my 6-year old, Business User 2.0 will makes these demands from you even if you are not ready for them.  It's time every organization proactively embraced them.  Oh, and...if you're looking for a bright, adaptable, hard-working Scooby-Doo fan for your management trainee program, I'll have a great candidate for you in about 16 years.

(The original version of this blog post appeared on the 'Enterprise Web 2.0' blog at http://blogs.jackbe.com in February 2008.  It has been updated for Fast Company.)