Thanks.

The difference is that traditional enterprise software, which imposes structure prior to use, Enterprise 2.0 tends to encourage use prior to providing structure…..

First and foremost is the imperative need for a Client-Support organization. While culture issues, social issues, and political issues get the majority of the press the real world is a tad simpler. The aforementioned issues can be overcome with mass adoption and natural pressure placed on people when everyone else is doing something. However, you will never get to that point until you solve the first two issues. While it may seem obvious, the first thing to come to grips with is your awareness issue. Perhaps, if you are a 20 person firm then awareness wonÂ’t be an issue but in a 300,000 person firm then it will be. DonÂ’t assume that if you send out an email or get some executive to announce the program that everyone will hear. As many people have stated that the biggest problem with communication is the assumption that it actually happened. You need to survey your users and ask them. When we were going to survey our user community, one of the members suggested that we use the collaborative tool to survey the community. That way they could get a taste of the application. My response was that would be like sending someone a Coke and then asking them if they had ever heard of Coca-Cola. Bottom line that after a year of communications, we still have a 35% awareness issue which has now dropped to less than 5% with a variety of programs.

The second issue is education and training. Even if people know these tools exist, they may not know how to use them in a business setting. ItÂ’s a huge mistake to assume that if you hire a bunch of young people that they know how to do this in the business world. No? Ok, how many types of blogs exist in the corporate world? Hmmmmm, one? See! There are many types of blogs or use cases for blogs including product blogs, topic blogs, event blogs, personal blogs, executive blogs, and program blogs. What type of information should be posted on these blogs? Well, for a product blog you would focus the information on things like releases, announcements, tips and techniques, upcoming training events, etc. Not sure I would hold a discussion on the merits of Agile Programming on a product blog. People want to know what to expect when they read.

I would also add to this list a solid business plan with growth projections. At the end of the day the only thing that really matters is the mass adoption and business value delivered.

I would like some more information on your examples if possible.

This leads to staff being made to feel guilty about activities that benefit their employer, but are not seen by all as ‘real work’.

Nice article. I agree with all your analysis. Thanks for the post.

Peter-Anthony Glick