In the enterprise social media world, there’s no shortage of software firms touting the fabulous productivity and collaboration benefits of their platforms. And they’re all right on the money; these technologies CAN do just that. But the question is…will they?
It’s my belief that successful Web 2.0 platforms across enterprises hinges not only on the robustness of the technology itself, but also understanding how people tick. Taken together, you can design and execute well-conceived change management strategies that gain traction AND support your E2.0 aims. This, no doubt, will get you the optimal outcomes you’re after. Daniel Siddle hit it on the head with his recent blog: Balancing Technology and Culture During a Social Business Implementation.
Don’t get me wrong here – I’m not picking on the technology. The stuff that firms like Socialtext, iCohere, Spigit, Jive, and Confluence are pumping out is great, and only getting better every day. My vendor rocks; they put out new releases every two weeks and provide really attentive customer service to ensure that their suite is meeting our needs. This sort of commitment to making their platform as user-friendly as possible will certainly grease the adoption process. But on its own, it’s still just a tool – and won’t necessarily accelerate companies along the Social Software Value Matrix. The complementary piece to the technology itself – the requisite behavior change at the individual, team/departmental, and enterprise levels – is too often not addressed at the outset. Rather, it’s taken as a “given” or dealt with as an afterthought, only when the initial stab at adoption goes south. And that’s really too bad.
So, where to begin? Well, like anything in life – start small. When I say small, I’m talking about behaviors here, not desired outcomes for using this technology – as you’ll need large-scale adoption in order to realize its true benefits (and you should also think big and ambitiously about how E2.0 will impact your top and bottom line). But small to me means integrating social software in the daily, rudimentary workflow of employees. Translation: focus on the low-hanging fruit of human behavior. What’s this? Get employees to upload draft documents to a shared workspace rather than email them to a distributed list, help them remember to get in the habit to tag and categorize their shared intellectual property, and microblog about what they’re working on right now.
Sounds easy enough, huh? Sadly, it’s not. People need more than a list of marching orders, and they certainly don’t need this sort of change to be mandated from the top – as it seldom works. Rather, I’m reminded of a mantra from my Group Dynamics course – “involvement leads to commitment.” Amen! It would behoove organizations to be thoughtful about their E2.0 integration plans BEFORE they embark on this implementation journey. How? Conduct a few focus groups to discover where the organic energy for these tools currently exists in your company and leverage those assets you already have. Put together a steering committee of E2.0 adoption enthusiasts to drive grassroots, “bottom-up” adoption within your organization. When employees feel like they own the platform, they’ll nurture it, use it, and evangelize it to others. You won’t need long-term contracts with expensive consultants like me to manage the process for the long-haul 
.
The kicker is, though, that this needs to be planned out in advance of any integration campaign – like when the ink on the contract with your E2.0 vendor of choice is still wet. It simply doesn’t work the same way when you’ve already tried to push the change out to employees.
The more we can unpack these human aspects of organization change, the higher likelihood of success for E2.0 adoptions. So I’ll continue along this thread in subsequent posts over the next few weeks. Stay tuned! In the meantime, let me know what your experience is with this stuff – either as an employee on the receiving end or leader trying to catalyze E2.0 adoption in your organization.
This is right on the money…particularly with today’s (and tomorrow’s) Gen Y and Gen M workforce.
Like the post. Some of our most successful clients have found that celebrating small behavioral changes as well as rewarding passionate e.g. community managers … do wonders for accelerating adoption.
Well said, but I’ll add another important variable. E2.0 vendors need to search for early adopters that find E2.0 technology essential to competing in their marketplace. Once the early adopters are successful, word spreads quickly and the early majority will start participating. Crossing the Chasm is in play here.
Mark, good point…and thanks for sharing your insights. Couldn’t agree more – identifying opportunities (both in terms of people and strategic use cases) where the adoption will have the highest likelihood of early success (or “small wins,” as John Kotter puts it) helps reaching that tipping point/cross that chasm more rapidly.
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Spot on with this post. It seems that organizations are riding the trend wave of slapping on the social media bandaid to their already challenged intranet. Just like the trend a few years back to create intranets – usage and collaboration potential while high fall short of expectations. This is a classic change management challenge that if properly addressed can make all the difference in usage.