An interesting perspective from Mike Ellis and Brian Kelly at MW2007:
Trawling the Web finds the following phrases recurring around Web 2.0: “mashup”, “de-centralisation”, “non-Web like”, “user generated content”, “permission based activity”, “collaboration”, “Creative Commons” … What sits at the heart of all of these, and one of the reasons Web 2.0 has been difficult for bigger, established organisations (including museums) to embrace, is that almost all the things talked about put users and not the organisation at the centre of the equation. Organisational structures, departmental ways of naming things, the perceived ‘value’ of our assets, in fact, what the organisation has to say about itself – all are being challenged.
Web 2.0: How to Stop Thinking and Start Doing: Addressing Organisational Barriers
Thanks for this – all points are valid for Universities also ;-) provides me with some valuable ammo against the 'why should we bother' question.