Enterprise organizations are investing in social collaboration technologies but adoption rates have been low due to inertia, poor communication, confusing tools, and lack of consequences for not using new tools. This document provides 9 strategies to improve adoption rates: 1) integrate tools into workflows; 2) don't overwhelm employees; 3) celebrate milestones; 4) provide clear communication; 5) explain why tools are important, not just how to use them; 6) demonstrate tool use; 7) gamify the adoption process; 8) include all employees; 9) collaborate with vendors. Adoption requires a diverse set of strategies to appeal to all employees.

1. 9 adoption strategies for
enterprise collaboration

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9 adoption strategies for enterprise collaboration
Enterprise organizations are investing heavily in social collaboration technologies, but adoption
rates have been surprisingly light. Employee engagement can suffer for many reasons, including
simple inertia, poor communication, confusing or hard-to-use tools, and lack of consequences for
doing things the way they’ve always been done.
Changing personal work habits isn’t easy, but it’s a requirement for effective collaboration in
new collaboration tools is in their best interests:
strategy #1: integrate new tools into your workflow
When you think about business applications that get the most adoption, expense report
procedures tend to top the list. This is because without adhering to the process employees
won’t be reimbursed. The same concept can be applied to collaboration tools: Integrate
them into your existing business processes and simply make it harder for employees to avoid
using. Integrating these tools with all other business applications also makes it a seamless
experience that’s easy.
Your collaboration tools should replace—not supplement—older methods of interaction, and
should link to important back-end systems like SharePoint or your CRM solution.
According Laurie Buczek, who led strategy and implementation of social collaboration
mid-stream. “Your intranet should be one in the same with your social platform,” she says,
social platform must seamlessly be an integral part of that experience: Don’t ship off your
employees to a separate site to socially engage and collaborate.”
strategy #2: don’t overwhelm your employees
Give your employees time to adjust to new ways of doing things. Rome wasn’t built in a day,
so build your collaboration efforts on a steady stream of small successes. You can start by
departments. This will allow you to work out any kinks in the system—and give you a ready
supply of news you can use to keep awareness top of mind throughout your organization.

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strategy #3: celebrate
Who doesn’t like a party? Creating excitement around a new collaboration platform is a great
way to attract attention and generate interest, especially if you’re on a mission to create a
new corporate culture. Consider ushering in your new era of collaboration with a company-
wide party, where everyone’s tasked to buy a gift for another employee chosen at random.
You can put a limit on the price tag and still get everyone in a sharing mood. After a rousing
kickoff, you can plan smaller events as different collaboration milestones are achieved: Just
make sure you have real reasons to celebrate.
strategy #4: provide clear communication on a regular basis
It’s ironic that many companies introduce social collaboration platforms without getting
feedback or having conversations about it with employees. Ongoing communication—
starting even before you choose a collaboration tool if possible—is important if you want to
build trust and universal buy-in.
Beforeimplementation,surveyyouremployeesaboutwhatproblemsthey’dlikeacollaboration
tool to solve. Get as much input as possible, and make it public through traditional channels.
If you have a steering committee leading the selection and implementation process, be sure
their activities are open, accessible, and visible throughout the enterprise.
Consider branding the collaboration effort at your company in some way to help get the idea
to stick in the collective consciousness of your enterprise. Enlist a creative team, or better
yet, ask your whole company to collaborate on the best tagline and/or logo.
When you’re starting to implement your new tools or platform, use hands-on activities—
such as brown bag lunches with champions or “super users”, road shows, focus groups,
public. Provide a forum for airing criticisms and address concerns head on. Make sure your
people know who they can talk to for basic information, suggestions and support.
strategy #5: teach the why as much as the how
Training around your new collaboration tool or platform should explain what it’s for, what
processes will be impacted and how to use it, but it’s even more important to explain to
employees why it’s so important.

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customer service how they can use to tool to answer their customer’s questions faster.
more use-case ideas from your employees—using the tool itself—and frame all the
examples within the larger context of the social media revolution.
Consider making training sessions available in person and online. Produce and distribute
video success stories, and employ super users of the collaboration tools to mentor others.
Tailor your training by department or team if necessary, and don’t forget to revamp your
employee orientation program to include collaboration training right from the start.
strategy #6: show, don’t tell
According to IDC’s Michael Fauscette, the more people who use a collaboration platform,
the more people will want to use it. Nobody likes to feel left out, so be sure to use the
earnings and other important company news.
Make public demonstrations of how your CEO, top management, super users and likable
people within your company are making the new tools come to life. Be careful, though,
because executive support has to go beyond lip service. If you show a manager posting a
document to a team site on Monday, she can’t go back to sending email attachments on
Tuesday. For a new collaboration platform to become trusted, everyone has to follow the
same rules.
strategy #7: gamify the adoption process
Increased productivity isn’t always incentive enough for people to adopt a new set of
around your new platform and use a little friendly competition to get people collaborating.
encourage action or participation. The basic components include:

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A series of rewards and incentives, such as badges or tickets to Hawaii, that can be
earned for doing things like posting to a blog, talking to a subject matter expert or
collaborating outside your normal silo
Online recognition through leader boards, group rankings, points needed, etc.
The ability to Level Up to achieve greater mastery and open new functionality, tasks or
training
Make it fun, but not frivolous, and make sure you don’t reward behavior that you’re
trying to eliminate. And, whenever possible, reward teams of people working together,
not single employees.
strategy #8: include everybody
According to Forrester, “elite” employees tend to adopt and use collaboration tools more
than others:
More than half earn over $60k a year, compared to 36 percent of non-users
Forty-nine percent are managers or executives, compared to 31 percent of non-users
Continually monitor your adoption rate and make a special effort to encourage non-users to
join in. If anyone feels excluded in any way, you’re totally missing the point.
strategy #9: collaborate with your vendor
Your collaboration solution provider can be a valuable ally in your effort to engage
employees. They can hook you up with other customers who’ve had adoption success, and
can give you their own ideas of what could work best in your enterprise.
You can return the favor by telling your success story by making a video, giving a tradeshow
presentation or simply talking to a future customer who’s in the same position you were it.
After all, isn’t that what collaboration’s all about?

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conclusion
There’s no better adoption strategy than simply adding that real value to your employees work
value in the utility that collaboration technologies provide, while others will appreciate how easily
accessible the tools are. Others will respond to incentives, or to the sense of belonging that using
the tools can create.
With a diverse set of employees, you need a diverse set of value-added adoption strategies to get
them all using the same collaboration platform.

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technology_partn/2011/06/driving-adoption-of-social-collaboration-tools.html, Thursday, 16 June 2011
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