If You Build It, Will They Come?

Let’s review the keys to ensuring adoption of E2.0 tools in your organization:

1. Define what value means to the organization and the individual worker. Understand what makes them tick, specific use cases, what they need to improve and how they might measure success;

2. Implement a robust, native collaboration platform like Microsoft SharePoint;

3. Add in publicly available components configured to meet the organization’s specific use cases;

4. Ensure social components are present, provide a familiar and intuitive user experience; and

5. Integrate a comprehensive activity stream communication tool.

Communicating Value
Now that we have defined what the value of SharePoint can be to the organization, codified the use cases important to users and created a solution in which those end users will find value, we need to understand how best to communicate this to your employees. Rolling out SharePoint as a platform, or any enterprise solution developed on it, is very much the same as deploying any type of enterprise software. It is important to recognize that what you are asking of the employees is really a change in their behavior. Change in any organization, regardless of the size, is hard and requires thought, foresight and planning. You need to proactively drive user adoption by creating a thoughtful and deliberate program specifically designed to motivate users to use and experience the value of the new solution.

Change management starts at the beginning of the implementation—really understanding the pain your users are currently feeling in their everyday jobs and working to demonstrate how your new solution fixes that pain and creates value and improvement for their specific job. Making sure the software, interface and tools are solid is imperative for your initial push and will greatly ease the transition. Create a rich yet simplistic interface, an intuitive user experience and functions that truly add value to the individual’s work. Change management through the deployment phase takes a number of forms, including:

• A well-planned rollout strategy;
• A thorough communications plan;
• Understanding of the needed education and training;
• A process for handling questions and feedback; and
• A comprehensive approach to supporting users during their initial interaction with the system.

Keep in mind these industry statistics as you go through this process. First, as with any enterprise application, it is likely that 7% to 8% of users will embrace the new technology rapidly. An additional 7% to 8% will never adopt. The remaining 85% will adopt over some period of time if provided with continued exposure and demonstrated value. It is this 85% where the need to “communicate value” is absolutely critical and where you should target most of your efforts. When planning the rollout, it is important to initially give the functionality to a group or team with a high concentration of the fast-adopting 7% to 8% who will jump right in, and then capitalize on their initiative by over communicating their success. While these users will share their knowledge and success virally, don’t be afraid to give it a push yourself. Proud users with success stories are your best tool for getting their peers to adopt quickly. Leverage the other elements of your communication plans with these successful first user interactions to keep the adoption happening.

Another statistic to watch is the "90/9/1" rule. For any organization implementing SharePoint or any other E2.0 solution, it is a safe assumption that 1% of the organization will be very active contributors, 9% will be periodic contributors and a full 90% will operate in an information-receive mode with rare contributions. As with any enterprise solution, creating data capture and reporting capabilities is important to understand usage. Be aware of the natural curve of human behavior, set targets accordingly and track to their achievement without unrealistic expectations.

As mentioned at the beginning, the successful adoption of SharePoint, or any E2.0 application, requires appropriate enhancement in order to demonstrate value both to the organization and to the individual. It starts with the definition of that value and continues with the encapsulation of scenarios that accurately reflect how user interaction with the system will make their jobs easier and drive overall organizational goals. Next, leverage a robust platform, build the solution from pre-existing components, ensure social components are available, provide users a familiar and intuitive experience and embed activity stream capabilities. Finally, don’t forget to communicate effectively and often about the value, the successes and the yet-untapped potential of the new solution. By following these steps users will embrace your new solution and your SharePoint investment will pay off handsomely.

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NewsGator continues to deliver enterprise collaboration software for business with Social Sites for SharePoint 2010. NewsGator Social Sites goes above and beyond SharePoint 2010 to make your organization truly social—with improved microblogging, an aggregated activity stream, a full range of mobile clients and rich social insights. Contact us to find out how we can guide you down the path toward Enterprise 2.0 success.