The thing about change is that while it is often necessary, it is also hard — literally a two-sided coin. Enterprise 2.0 principles — internal collaboration through social networking-inspired tools — are inevitable evolutions in how business is done. But you can't adopt every new tool at once, and how you deploy new technologies can be just as important as which technologies you choose. Watch out for these traps while pursuing the rewards of Enterprise 2.0 technologies:
Avoid tool-driven adoption. The term 'Enterprise 2.0' is not limited to a single meaning. A wide variety of solutions fall within this philosophy, so choosing products isn't as simple as looking for the 'Enterprise 2.0' label on the box. All too often, the temptation is to select products with the most polished, or most immediately appealing, tools — but the risk is that by doing this, the tail wags the dog. Your business may not need every 'e2.0' feature out there; it simply needs the tools that meet your goals. Setting those goals needs to be first step before choosing the technology, rather than the other way around.
Beware of exaggerated expectations. The honest truth is that employee adoption rates for collaboration tools are notoriously low. Just how to improve uptake is another subject, but suffice it to say, if corporate leadership expects 99 percent adoption of the fancy new collaboration platform in the first week, they're bound to be disappointed. Launch new collaboration initiatives with modest expectations, and target the users for whom the new tools would be most useful. Remember that there was a time when a select few people in a company communicated by 'electronic mail' while today, nearly everyone does. Such transitions never happen overnight.
Don't forget to KISS. Keep it simple! Many Enterprise 2.0-targeted platforms offer broad — and often bewildering — packages of features. Just because your new collaboration platforms support wikis, microblogging, forums and instant messaging doesn't mean everyone needs to use every feature on day one. If employees are overwhelmed, they are most likely to avoid every new feature and stick with their traditional (though possibly suboptimal) methods. Instead, promote a single, accessible feature of a new collaboration platform until it becomes integrated into employees' regular habits.
Set clear goals. On the same theme, avoid deploying Enterprise 2.0 platforms without clear direction as to how and why to use them. Abstractness is a poor incentive. Set a goal that involves using a particular feature of the new platform to achieve a very specific outcome — for example, using collaborative editing capabilities to develop a new marketing strategy. Without clear goals, employees will simply stick to their existing technologies.
Show strong leadership. "Good for the goose is good for the gander" — it’s a cliché, but it's also true. Executive involvement in Enterprise 2.0 adoption needs to go beyond the budget approval stage. The real value in these tools is how they're used, and who better to set that example than the leaders of the company? Avoid making distinctions between the 'workforce' and the 'management' and demonstrate that everyone is taking the same medicine. After all, if it isn't good enough for the company’s leaders, why would it be good enough for everyone else?
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