Sims Learning Connections

Continuing to dig into the first “for further reading” from my Motivation for Technology Adoption, I mapped the “five tips for enterprise 2.0 adoption” meme headliners to the motivations:

1. Solves my problem. (Compared to motivation #3 below: this is about functionality more than marketing)
   • Align Enterprise 2.0 Strategy to Business Strategy (Bill Ives)
   • Align Enterprise 2.0 Applications to Key Business Goals and Process (Bill Ives)
   • Listen to the Users, Involve Them in the Design (Bill Ives)
   • Use case studies from similar organisations. (James Robertson)
   • Be passionate about the right things…we should be passionate about solving the problem, or meeting the need. (James Robertson)
   • Start with a business problem and find the social media tools to solve it, not the other way around. (Jerry Bowles)
   • Fix a broken process. (Jim McGee)
   • Tie the service to a critical business process or need and customize it to that need. (Kathleen Gilroy)
   • Identify which business activities are the best candidates…we need to have some sense of purpose (what is it that we what to improve). There are certain business activities that are likely to be better candidates than others…(Mike Gotta)
2. Easier and/or cheaper than alternatives.
   • Develop a Clear Business Case (Bill Ives)
   • Simplify the Access of Knowledge (Bill Ives)
   • Don’t spend a lot of money (Jerry Bowles)
   • Make the web service very simple to use (Kathleen Gilroy)
   • Make it easy to start using the Enterprise 2.0 technology (Larry Cannell)
3. I know about the solution and its advantages. (Compared to motivation #1 above: this is marketing, more than functionality)
   • Provide Strong Leadership for the Enterprise 2.0 Function(s) (Bill Ives)
   • Develop a Clear Communication Plan to Promote the Effort (Bill Ives)
   • Integrate all forms of Communication and Documentation (Bill Ives)
   • Create a prototype or pilot. Use this to showcase potential improvements, and to “sell” it throughout the rest of the organisation. (James Robertson)
   • Train. Train. Train. People need to be shown not only how to do things but why. (Kathleen Gilroy)
   • Demonstrate the Enterprise 2.0 technology…somehow get the Enterprise 2.0 technology out there so people can see it, use it, and think about how it can solve their problems. (Larry Cannell)
   • Define what Enterprise 2.0 means for you (Mike Gotta)
   • Play the field. Most enterprise 2.0 software is priced at a level where you don’t have to decide based on what you can afford. You can take advantage of the trials offered by most companies to get a good feel for what’s available… (Stewart Mader)
4. Recommended by my peers.
   • Begin with a social media audit. Social media gain their force through trusted individuals. (Jerry Bowles)
   • Find and enlist co-conspirators (Jim McGee)
   • Foster a community of users (Larry Cannell)
5. Has visible executive support.
   • Gain and Enlist Top Down Support to Overcome Turf Issues (Bill Ives)
   • Provide Strong Leadership for the Enterprise 2.0 Function(s) (Bill Ives)
   • Get senior management support (Larry Cannell)

None of the tips mapped to motivations 6 through 10.

Tips that didn’t map well to my top-ten motivations:

• Design Measure[ment Metrics] Aligned to Business Processes (Bill Ives)
• Involve all the Key Stakeholders (Bill Ives)
• Develop a Clear Motivation Plan that Aligns with Current Motivation Plans (Bill Ives) — although, tangentially this is the above exercise
• Use stories to articulate (and capture) needs (James Robertson)
• Build on existing platforms (James Robertson)
• Start small and keep expectations low (Jerry Bowles)
• Understand the stakes and the risks (Jerry Bowles)
• Start with your own learning…these are technologies whose value is not easily understood from casual use or from reading someone else’s account. (Jim McGee)
• Use Enterprise 2.0 tools to do your research on Enterprise 2.0 (Jim McGee)
• Ignore the IT organization or co-opt it (Jim McGee)
• Model best practices (Kathleen Gilroy)
• Help users help themselves. The traditional IT approach of creating job-aides, FAQ sheets, and documenting best practices in a spiffy-looking Intranet site can often be delegated to the community. (Larry Cannell)
• Prioritize the organizational over the technological. The organizational issues are far more important to deal with than the tools. (Mike Gotta)
• Anchor any effort around people, groups and networks (Mike Gotta)
• Balance “edge” and “core” needs when it comes to technology (Mike Gotta)
• Move swiftly and with purpose, but don’t rush it (Stewart Mader)

Observation: little here that jumps out as unique to “Enterprise 2.0″ beyond the ability and expectation of more “try before you buy” compared to traditional enterprise applications. Minus the “2.0″ label, most of this list would have sounded very familiar to me 12 years ago when I started in IT consulting…still in the initial move to client-server architecture.