Information is at our fingertips, but often we don’t even use a fraction of the potential of our data. But that is about to change. New web services are surfacing, they turn data into information, for use.

Companies gather information about their customers. Why do you think most large retail stores have discount cards? To get information about you. Because if you know about someone you can relate, if you know what people like you can offer them something suitable. If you can see patterns you can predict other things they like too. But not in every situation discount cards work. There isn’t always an opportunity to learn about consumer patterns.

The new breed of tools that is surfacing is taking a different approach. They combine data you have already, primarily from your email but also from your social networking accounts, and combine that with data available on the web. From the same social networking sites, search engines, blog feeds and so on. Companies can add information from their CRM systems too.

All this information is providing profiles most companies could never have dreamt of. Not just information about what your customers do with you, but about what really interests them, who their friends are, what they write about and more. Scary? Maybe, in some contexts. But also convenient. Would you rather have a conversation with someone that relates to you or a dork that has no clue? Do you like to be offered products you like, or random stuff you don’t care about?

The two tools that seem to be front runners of this movement are Gist and Xobni. Although they both take a different approach, in essence they are doing the same: combining data and making it valuable information to you.

Xobni, the Outlook plugin that makes searching your inbox and finding information about your contacts fast and easy. It is a plugin for outlook that combines your email data with Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Salesforce and Hoover. It also offers features you’ll like as a personal user so it is worth checking out for yourself as well. The drawback? It is only available for Outlook, well and Blackberry too, but I’d love to have it for Mac, Gmail and iPhone too. I would even be willing to pay for it privately.

Gist helps you to “Know More About Who You Know”. I takes data from the same sources Xobni does, and additionally Gmail, CSV and vCard files, and combines that with information available on the web. It provides you with a host of information on people and companies and the relations between them. It even acts as a full fledged CRM system allowing you to create a dossier on people.

These are two good and distinct examples of how the game is changing. I’d be interested to hear about more examples if you know them.

Enterprise 2.0 is about how people work together and interact with each other. Of course you need suitable software to support this, but you also need a culture that is aligned with that way of working.

In this concept people work together in rapidly changing groups, much like project teams often work. They have a common objective, they work together to achieve that and they move on to the next project, with a different group and different objective.

Interaction also follows different logic than conventional hierarchical structures. With technological help it is a lot easier for people of different levels to get in touch and interact. Just like for kids nowadays it is much easier to stay in touch with their holiday friends in other countries. Likewise it is also much easier for people of different levels, departments and even organizations to stay connected. And often this does not happen from 9 to 5 on working days.

Of course you need a vehicle to allow this to happen. Just like you need a bike to cycle. In fact you need more than one. You need a whole toolbox to easily set up groups, share documents, work on documents together, communicate and so on. Often this is where the focus is for organizations. But as you need a bike to cycle, having a bike does not mean you can do it.

You need the skills. Someone needs to teach you how to do it. And they need to trust you that you can indeed ride the bike on your own and get where you need to be. That’s the cultural part of Enterprise 2.0 and that is the paradigm shift. As organizations provide their staff to be flexible and work together and even do this from anywhere, they need to act accordingly.

In 2010 companies will use more IM than e-mail for their communications, as they become accustomed to the direct level of communication this offers, according to researcher IDC. They also state that the line between personal and business communication starts to disappear, which fits in the trend of location independent working where people don’t have to be at the office anymore to do their job.