I’m still integrating and thinking about what I heard at the E2.0 conference in Boston a week back. My thinking was helped by a review of the excellent videos that are now available. Andrew McAfee moderated a panel whose membership was drawn from people who presented their (successful) case studies of E2.0 implementation. The panel represented a number of perspectives on introducing social tools:

• Simon Revell, of Pfizer,* adopted a “just do it” approach, introducing the tools, creating edgy introductory videos (see “Meet Charlie”), and nurtures the successes.
• Ned Lerner, Sony Computer Enterprises, responded to top-down management directives to use these tools (easy in a company whose business is internet gaming).
• Pete Fields, Wachovia*, who developed a concept for an integrated tool set that connected to corporate communications policies, and worked across the organization for 18 months to get buy-in before launching.
• Sean Dennehy and Don Burke, CIA*, who were inspired by Cal Andres “The Wiki and the Blog” to explore Wikipedia and see how discussion and history pages could naturally support the way that intelligence analysts work.

(* indicates a video of this case study is also available, on the same page linked above).

McAfee started by acknowledging that Enterprise 2.0 hasn’t yet taken over the planet, for a variety of reasons:

• The tools are not yet perfected
• Management is impeding adoption in some way
• Users are slow to take up the tools

There was general agreement that the current use within these organization is less than 10% of the employee populations, but each see that the growth is continuous in a positive direction.

Many of the “lessons learned” from these early adopters will sound quite familiar to those of us who have been on the leading edge of introducing technologies for collaboration and knowledge management into organizations, but there are some new twists. What works:

• Acknowledge and reward the early adopters and champions
• Pfizer has consultants available to help business groups get started and use tools appropriately
• Change management is essential. Wachovia involved organizational development, organizational pyschologists, and corporate communications, but still underestimated the difficulty of traction beyond the early adopters
• Look for ways to implement the tools “in the flow,” as part of work. Look especially for existing work processes that can be vastly improved and implement there. Organize around big problems, and don’t keep all the social tool usage under the radar.

Cautionary tales:

• Middle management can be harder to convince than senior management. (They are rewarded for “making the trains run on time,” not for encouraging people to spend time learning new tools.)
• It’s faulty to assume that what’s true on the web will work the same way in the enterprise
• Fight against lockdown. Turn down requests by users to have “private” spaces accessible by only a few people (yes, this one from the CIA!)
• Not all organizations are ready for transparency.
• Don’t assume that because everyone can have a voice that decisions will be made by the majority (the crowd). Leaders must learn to use the opinions of the crowd to inform and shape decisions, not to make them.

True to the spirit of web 2.0, the conference site (linked above) remains available as a community archive of presentations, comments, and interactions. What is the spirit? I liked Pete Fields’ definition of “Enterprise 2.0:”

Connecting people for the purpose of deriving business value

Browsing through this site should help you find people with whom you might connect to delve deeper and find more… to help with your own journeys.