For the past 2 years or so there has been much debate in the office about the state of the economy. My colleague Denis Hancock had a great post on the state of the housing market that highlighted this very interesting mash-up of historical US housing prices and Atari RollerCoaster Tycoon(R) 3. Now that we are clearly in the midst of an economic slump, there are many debates about what got us here and how it can be remedied.

During recessions company’s start to hunker down, prepare to weather the storm. We have seen this in our clients in terms of budget cuts, hiring freeze’s and even more aggressive staffing cutbacks. Regardless of the how you spin it, downsizing, streamlining or put more transparently ‘layoffs’, the point is that organization are looking to cut costs and do more (or at least the same) with less.

Personally this seems to be a perfect opportunity for Web 2.0 tools and technologies to further penetrate the enterprise. Collaborative tools are a lightweight, low cost technology designed to drive faster communication, more efficient collaboration and greater transparency in organizations. If you are an organization trying to do more with less this would seem to be the ideal solution.

Unfortunately, for most individuals change is scary, and taking a risk with your career or organization during unstable financial times isn’t the most enticing option. However, I think this means that the opportunity to create competitive advantage and differentiation become are even greater. In have highlighted four areas that leading organizations could look to exploit the benefits of collaborative tools.

• Connecting and leveraging internal resources – For large organizations dealing with limited internal resources (or in some cases poorly allocated resources after cutbacks) the ability to connect to and leverage internal knowledge and expertise will be extremely valuable.
• Measure twice and cut once – In organizations many times information is horded and work is duplicated. If organizations can utilize collaborative tools to increase organizations transparency and promote collaboration they should be able to operate in a much more efficient manner. Think of the benefits of being able to complete 10 or 15 percent of your project from preexisting work.
• Marketing in a 2.0 way – I think it will be tempting for many organizations to revert back to their tried and true marketing channels in tough economic times. Investing money where they have established metrics is safe from a job security standpoint, but doesn’t make sense given the direction we see marketing and the customer relationship moving
• Attracting and retaining talent – Yes, I know in a recession and the labour market isn’t exactly tight, but that is today. Look five, or even three years out in your organization and think about how that workforce will change. As the Baby Boomers retire organization will need to be able to attract and retain Net Generation employees. Creating a dynamic and collaborative working environment is one way to accomplish that.

This is by no means meant to be an exhaustive list, rather something to get you thinking about how to proactively deal with the economic environment using Web 2.0 tools. Agree? Disagree? let me know if you have other thoughts and ideas.