Is Web 2.0 a technology looking for a problem?

I was looking back through some old notes of mine from when I worked in Knowledge Management at the turn of the millennium. We had just had a presentation from a major document management system to the Head of IT and myself as a representative of the department.

The presentation lasted nearly 2 hours and I have just spotted the note that I made at the end of the presentation. It said "This piece of IT looks like it is trying to find a problem to solve. If there is no problem to overcome then why use the technology.

I was thinking this as I recently read an article in KM World which highlights the technology trap that people can fall into. They look for an exciting piece of technology and try to ramrod it into the organisation. My view is to consider whether this will help the business to be successful and then design the technology around it not forgetting my triangle of people, process and technology.

However you can always be theoretically accurate and also review what has happened at other organisations, but I would also suggest that you pilot it out first to see whether it fits into your organisation and to see whether it increases your companies abilities to be successful and not necessarily to keep up with your competitors who have just invested in the new super duper IT system.