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February 03, 2010

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ImpactSP2walden

This puts a really good focus on "usability" within organizations. Social media and web 2.0 is still in that "fad" phase where people and orgs are starting to adopt it because "everyone else" seems to be doing it but there's no underlying plan of use. You make a really good point in saying that the use is directly related to a person/orgs professional success (what can they gain for using it and how can they justify its use to their company).

I've personally found that with technology in general there is always a huge gap between the creator and the user. Tech applications are made "to work" by the creator, which are then passed onto (or in some cases, forced onto) the user. When the user complains that they don't know what to do, the creator is like, "well, it works." And the user is like, "no, it's not working FOR ME." We may find that these 2.0 champions are able to fit in between the creator and user as a kind of translator for usability. The translater is familiar with the process and logic behind the creator's work in making a product but also mindful of the inexperienced user. Regradless, this whole evolution of technology is so exciting that I can sleep...ever! But that's okay because I've got my machines.

Great post! (I found the link on our Socialtext wiki.) hee-hee.

Doug Cornelius

I think the biggest fallacy is the "young and hip" criteria. Back when I was in the business of rolling out a platform at my old firm, it was the senior people who contributed the most.

My theory is that junior people (1) did not know enough about the organization, (2) did not have enough substantive information and (3) were too afraid to publish anything that might show the truth about the first two.

Yes, they have much more exposure to the ubiquity of information on the internet, but (like all of use) they have not figured out how this translates to operations inside an enterprise.

Keith Weiss

Insightful perspective, Michael. To me, it sounds a lot like a modernized variation on a traditional stakeholder analysis – let’s call it stakeholder analysis 2.0. Most stakeholder analysis paradigms start with securing executive sponsorship, followed by cascading an initiative downhill while ‘managing’ resistance along the way. To your point, these don’t work so well in the E2.0 world.

Don’t get me wrong, all those aspects of change management are still critically important, and they always will be…but given the bottom-up, emergent nature of E2.0 adoption patterns, you can’t simply work from common assumptions such as formal titles wielding influence and working from perceptions of who might “get it” from the get-go.

Enticing as those approaches are, they might not be the powerful levers of change you need to help the adoption process gain traction. So, I agree with the your focus on first identifying those key roles, cross-silo relationships and dependencies of how work in the organization really gets done, and then using that insight to inform the roll-out strategy. From there, you’re in a much stronger position to influence widespread behavior and attitude change that can achieve critical mass for the social software adoption. Great post.

Ways to invest money

Tech applications are made "to work" by the creator, which are then passed onto (or in some cases, forced onto) the user. When the user complains that they don't know what to do, the creator is like, "well, it works." And the user is like, "no, it's not working FOR ME." We may find that these 2.0 champions are able to fit in between the creator and user as a kind of translator for usability.

twitter.com/rotkapchen

You illustrate a point that those of us who design work experiences are all too familiar with: be careful how you ask workers questions, because they wear many hats which often have conflicting agenda. If you ask me as a personal worker what I'd prefer, it might likely be different that if I have to respond with my 'defend the agenda of the department' hat on.

working girl

This is a great post and I agree with your conclusions about practical need smoothing the way to adoption. However, I still think passion is a key ingredient - in your example the passion petered out because of lack of organization. Because there was no cohesive plan to channel that passion the people with the plan were more productive than the people with the passion. But shouldn't we be aiming for both? Also it sounds like that marketing manager was actually pretty passionate about what she was doing or she wouldn't have accomplished so much more than her other marketing colleagues.

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