Transparent office: 6 steps to Company-Wide Adoption - Michael Idinopulos's Blog on Social Software in the Enterprise

Very interesting article. It is really amazing to think how technology is rapidly evolving (can anyone ever keep up)?? This really just demonstrates how critical using and maximizing technology will be (and already is) for companies to have any kind of competitive advantage. It will be interesting to watch the future success (or lack of) of companies that jump on board and use technology and those that don't. This article really got me thinking; can companies sustain without using technology? Will companies that don't utilize this ever evolving would of technology be able to recruit and retain top talent or the new and innovative generations? Are there companies that can remain successful with out using technology? If so, which ones and why? Will companies start changing their departments and overall organizations to keep up with technology (ie start creating more comprehensive on site IT departments to support these rapidly evolving needs)?
I think if we don't start to see a shift in company cultures and an openness to embrace, accept and utilize technology in a more comprehensive way, we will begin to see many once successful companies fail. This needs to happen before we can even begin to look at the how to implement these technologies or approach company wide adoption mentioned in this article.



Other points from the article:

Companies are moving beyond implementing technology only among teams but rather are looking to social software to transform their entire organization. Because of this companies must take a different approach. Company wide implementations are very different from departmental implementations. Here is a starting point the article mentions to do so:



1. Encourage a broad range of use cases. Different groups will find value in different ways: finding experts, managing projects, surfacing ideas from the field, communicating to staff, building social communities, monitoring competitors, staying in constant contact with customers, etc. Encourage the diversity, while looking for common patterns.
2. Recruit energetic champions across the organization. It's very clear from the customer studies we've done that individuals play a major role in determining who adopts these tools and how. Enlisting energetic evangelists in their respective geographies and divisions is critical. You need both generalists who touch many different parts of the organization and specialists who can deliver deep penetration in local areas.
3. Launch the tools with hands-on experiences for new users. Social software is fun...once you try it. Don't just show it to your company; create a moment that forces them to actually try it out. Use large-scale gatherings (physical and virtual) to pull in large numbers of people at once.
4. Route repeated activities through social software. Use your social software to supplant email on routine information requests. Some of those activities should be common across the entire company, while others will be group-specific.
5. Integrate with existing systems of record. Social software can be a great way to enhance CRM, document management, and other structured systems of record with more free-form context, conversation, ideation, and socialization.
6. Leverage public communities. The Enterprise 2.0 world is changing fast, and your fellow practitioners are inventing new best practices every day. Use them!