Whether you are a small business or a large enterprise, a little planning and follow through can go a long way towards realizing the benefits of new technology. With adoption being the end goal to any new technology implementation, here are 10 questions and best practices to evaluate your Enterprise 2.0 adoption strategy:

1. Evaluating Options: Did you test more than one solution to figure out which one worked best with your team/company?

2. Evaluating Ease of Use: Did you have to create a lengthy training manual to accompany the solution? Was ease of use a criteria in your options evaluation?

3. Pre-Testing: Did you test your chosen solution(s) to see what was working and what was not working with a small focus group first?

4. Selling Benefits, not Features: Did you emphasize the benefits to participants and what’s in it for them?

5. Encouraging with Incentives: Did you offer incentives to those who actively contributed and adopted the new solution?

6. Leading at Top & Bottom: Did you recruit influencers/leaders at the top to
lead with participation? and at the bottom?

7. Empowering Users: Did you give the users a larger measure of control to encourage organic sharing? and open it up rather than trying to exert unnecessary control?

8. Integrating Workflow: Did you consider how to integrate your data and solution(s) with user workflow? (e.g. email)

9. Priming the Content Pump: Did you customize and build content into the system before you invited everyone to see the value & vision?

10. Evangelizing Responsibility: Did you assign someone to be the ongoing lead evangelist for the sharing, encouraging, and collaboration efforts?

Copyright, Fresh Consulting LLC

Our approach to efficiency is outdated
The scientific management movement developed distinct processes to decouple management and labor and break down skills into discrete automated tasks with the goal of removing inefficiencies and implementing measurement and control. It worked. The more efficient you were, the more money saved and subsequently the more profit. As a result of scientific management, manufacturing improved and prospered. In the majority of the 20th century, it represented a huge portion of the world economy. But in the 21st century, manufacturing is on the decline and knowledge workers are growing; they now outnumber manual laborers 4 to 1 (Haag, S., Cummings, M., McCubbrey, D., Pinsonneault, A., & Donovan, R. (2006). Management Information Systems For the Information Age (3rd Canadian Ed.). Canada: McGraw Hill Ryerson).  The worker and the work have changed and so should our approach to efficiency.

Knowledge workers are thinkers and creators, not repetitive robots
Many companies try to implement best practices for manufacturing work with their knowledge workers, but the principles of scientific management were for producing tangible products, not intangible ones. Knowledge workers are thinkers and creators, not repetitive robots. Instead of empowering people and finding their talents and encouraging them through incentives that align with company goals, we try to manage people like machinery since most workers sit inside expensive cost centers. The faster they work, the more money saved, right? Wrong.

Efficiency in knowledge work is different than efficiency in manufacturing work
Efficient manufacturing meant that you were able to duplicate products quickly. In knowledge work however, duplication of efforts mean inefficiencies exist. Implementing processes intended to improve repetitive manufacturing efficiency won’t work for knowledge workers.

Rather, knowledge workers need processes and technologies that …

INCREASE

• collaboration with each other
• connections and relationships to get insight from others
• creative efficiency to produce new knowledge and product
• transparency of existing documents to build upon

and DECREASE time spent:

• duplicating work
• searching for documents
• locating others they need to talk to
• finding knowledge that will help them
• re-building something when a template already exists

Duplication is a primarily culprit in inefficient knowledge work
There is a huge amount of duplication occurring in companies and government bodies. Did you know there are 15 government agencies that inspect food? (see source here) It’s not uncommon for global companies to find company workers in other countries doing the exact same work. Reducing duplication is critical in big companies.

When someone starts a new project you lose a lot of productivity if they have to duplicate work that has been completed in another part of the company. For any company that delivers intangibles, giving a worker the ability to locate and access work that has already been completed can deliver huge efficiency gains because centralized documents and forums reduce the need to repeat answers.

Here are some stats that illustrate the problem with inefficient knowledge work (Thanks to a compilation of stats in a Microblogging and Enterprise 2.0 whitepaper from Social Text):

• IDC Research found that “…knowledge workers spend 15-30% of their time seeking specific information and these searches are successful less than 50% of the time.
• For the Fortune 500, the cost of the fruitless searches represents between $60 and $85 billion in direct costs and twice that in opportunity costs.”
• The Delphi Group found that employees spend 1/4 of their time looking for information. A Butler Group study also found that employees spend 1/4 of their day searching, which accounted for 10% of labor costs.
• Intel and Cisco internal studies independently found their employees spend a day a week searching for people and information.
• A Bersin & Associates study finds that most senior-level executives spend hours each week searching the Internet in frustration for business-related information that will help them stay informed and current.
• “Only 13% of people can find someone with a particular area of expertise in their own company” according to a 2008 IBM study of 400 HR executvies.

Email is the large culprit of our duplicated efforts since knowledge is 1) transferred, 2) purged, and 3) re-created therein

1) Knowledge is often TRANSFERRED through email

• A lot of the knowledge work and knowledge transfer happens in email. In fact, IBM reported that “Email is now estimated to be the platform for as much as 75% of company IP”
• Knowledge is found in conversations and attached documents
• And knowledge often results from conversations. An email chain fits the definition of a conversation since conversations are connected thoughts in a given context; but if we want to share an email conversation, we end up flooding everyone’s inbox.

2) We PURGE our email and thus purge our knowledge

Our corporate inboxes are often limited to a certain size, causing us to purge our individual inbox of the knowledge we have in our conversations, reports, and attached documents.

3) We keep many email conversations and attached documents private when they could be public, requiring RE-CREATION later on

We are asking and answering questions in our email siloes that could be answered automatically if people were connected into each other’s work status, projects and knowledge.

As a result we end up re-creating prior conversations and documents created sometime in the past.

The result: DUPLICATION

If you are like everyone else, People costs are your #1 expense, so efficiently is still vital
Around the globe, people costs are companies’ largest controllable costs. Because people are expensive, it’s important that we make them as efficient as possible to provide the most value to the company they all benefit from. Greater efficiencies save money by:

• freeing people to add value in other areas of the business
• refraining from having to hire new people and contractors and
• reducing the number of staff involved

Enterprise 2.0 technologies have stepped up to the plate recently with a new approach to efficiency
Enterprise 2.0 apps extract the value from the emails into a common platform so that important knowledge is captured and used by everyone given access. Notifications may still reach our email inbox, but important knowledge in emails are not hoarded and forgotten, or purged and lost. Here’s how enterprise 2.0 technologies enable greater efficiencies for knowledge workers:

• Knowledge Repository: When you know there is a repository for answers, templates, studies, research, reports, and analytics, you can search for the the aforementioned.
• Connections: When you know how to find the right people to help you, you spend less time looking and less money on outside help.
• Transparency: When you know what people are doing, it requires fewer reports and requires less duplication of something someone else has already done

Enterprise 2.0 adoption will help break the duplication silos and signficantly increase efficiency
I was doing a pricing strategy work for a client. The marketing group did their own analyses, the finance group did their own analysis, and the statistics group did their own analysis. These departments rarely shared their results. Instead, they hoarded their knowledge and used it when supporting their favored position when the three groups disagreed on a plan of action. If they had all shared their analysis, they would have avoided 50% of their work and created an understanding for mutual goals.

Enterprise 2.0 encourages collaboration, sharing, aggregation, and recording. Having knowledge that is accessible, indexed, and searchable in a digital format helps everyone reduce duplication and build on each other’s work. This helps a company come together and work as a collective team, no matter how large the company is.

Whenever you reduce duplicated efforts, you have more time to contribute to value-add contributions. That means more time to be creative, more time to connect, more opportunities for collaboration, and less time looking for information and searching for people.

This is not just a theoretical post; I’ve witnessed the aformentioned problems as a consultant to many other companies and I’ve seen the benefits from implementing collaborative and social Enterprise 2.0 software.  I’ve made my case and emphasized the benefits to help inspire change necessary for upheaving the old and implementing the new.  If you’ve taken the time to read this long rant, do you believe me?  Why or why not?

But why? In our personal lives, we socialize, contribute and collaborate online, yet at work, we seem to both share and talk less.  As a result, people and information are harder to find. This video is a story about collaborative networks –how they came about, what they are, the problems they solve, and the opportunity to get on board and keep up in this new, fast-paced collaboration age.

The video below is still a draft and we are providing a sneak peak to seek out your feedback and ideas.  We are still in the middle of the refining process, so please share with us your thoughts in the comments section below the blog post. (e.g. too fast, too slow, confusing parts, parts you like, etc)  Thanks! Let’s collaborate.

We scoured Web 2.0-related videos and storyboarded what we thought to be the key concepts. Interestingly enough, the sequence of the compilation seems to fit together and tell a comprehensive story of the impact of the new web.

• Did you know? (Aug 2006)
• The Machine is Us/ing Us (Jan 2007)
• Information R/evolution (Oct 2007)
• Social Media Revolution (Jul 2009)
• Social Media Marketing (Jul 2009)

Web 2.0 is worth it for business

McKinsey Quarterly’s “Global Survey” analyzed responses from 1,700 executives to derive the business benefits gained from using Web 2.0 tools across three areas: internal within the organization; external with customers; and with suppliers, partners and experts. Now in its third year, the study has found that respondents who use Web 2.0 tools most often reported “greater ability to share ideas; improved access to knowledge experts; and reduced costs of communications, travel, and operations,” in addition to decreased time to market for products and improved employee satisfaction – these benefits are nothing to snide at.

Companies who have tasted the benefits are continuing to invest

Now, it is easy to feel confused given the inundation of noise and buzz about Web 2.0 and how it equates or even relates to real, tangible business benefits. After all, we as consumers and personal users of Web 2.0 tools have embraced these technologies adding friends and sharing information on social networks, rating and reviewing restaurants on review sites, writing about life events on blogs … but we are just beginning to see true adoption in the enterprise. However, this study by McKinsey is continued proof at even the executive-level, of some of the largest companies, that full-fledged adoption of the right Web 2.0 tools, at the right time, with the right strategy will indeed bring business benefits. If you don’t start dipping your feet in the water to get on board and become a more networked company now, you could be left behind, trying to surf ahead.

Those who are on board (networked companies) “report that their companies have gained measurable business benefits, including more innovative products and services, more effective marketing, better access to knowledge, lower cost of doing business, and higher revenues.”

And not only are they adopting now but the study found that even in the midst of this current recession, “respondents overwhelmingly say that they will continue to invest in Web 2.0.”

In fact, McKinsey’s study found that the more you use Web 2.0 technologies, the more you network and collaborate with others, the greater the benefits – something John Hagel, John Seely Brown, Lang Davison of the Deloitte Center for the Edge elaborate on in their Harvard Business School article, “Introducing the Collaboration Curve .”

Three areas are driving benefits

Although networked companies all use a blend of Web 2.0 tools, those that are most often used range from automatic information feeds such as RSS or microblogs, to traditional blogs, wikis, and podcasts – the same tools that are popular among consumers.

So exactly what do networked companies do with the tools to realize benefits across the aforementioned three areas (internal, customer, partner)?

1. Networked companies integrate Web 2.0 tools into the work flows of their people and experience powerful internal benefits. The increased “interactivity promises to bring more employees into daily contact at lower cost. When used effectively, [Web 2.0 tools] also may encourage participation in projects and idea sharing, thus deepening a company’s pool of knowledge”
2. Networked companies look outside the four walls of the firm and experience shared benefits with their customers. The new and tighter relationships created have “increased customers’ awareness and consideration of companies’ products and has improved customer satisfaction.” These companies treat their customers differently and collaborate to “jointly shape and cocreate products using Web 2.0 connections,” resulting in net, new revenue.
3. Networked companies leverage learnings from using Web 2.0 tools internally and with customers to generate better ties with suppliers and partners. These closer ties enable the ability to gain access to expertise from within the new network and they also equate to “lower costs of communication with business partners and lower travel costs.”

It’s not just new technology, there’s more to it

Obviously technology alone will not give you all those benefits. Management practices, a Web 2.0 strategy, and organization and cultural characteristics contribute significantly. McKinsey in particular found that: “three aspects of management were particularly critical to superior performance: a lack of internal barriers to Web 2.0, a culture favoring open collaboration (a factor confirmed in the 2009 survey), and early adoption of Web 2.0 technologies”

The study goes on to elaborate on adoption reporting that informal incentives such as ratings by peers and recognition of status have been most effective in addition to modeling active Web 2.0 use by executives.

Simply speaking, Web 2.0 delivers benefits by multiplying the opportunities for collaboration and by freeing up knowledge to spread more effectively.

Since the term Web 2.0 was coined back in 1999 and then made popular in 2004 by O’Reilly, what Web 2.0 really means has been debated over and over across the blogosphere while adoption and use of “Web 2.0 technologies” have continued to evolve at an increasingly rapid pace. The question we’ve all been asking is, is it worth it? Three years of analysis later, McKinsey says yes. And we would agree – call it what you will, Web 2.0 is worth it for business.

Profiles help people be aware of others’ talents and interests
Built in search and browse features helps people efficiently find and connect with talent helpful for their initiatives that they would otherwise not be aware of.  Knowing of others connections or receiving recommendations also help you be aware of co-workers or key stakeholders you should meet.

There is a reason why online dating sites are so wildly successful.  People are naturally curious about others.  For example, GE implemented a social directory where a user could click through their entire org chart and browse a personal page that discussed more about them.  That social feature alone is viewed 100,000 times / day.  They also have have 50,000 communities to help people connect on a local level.  One employee may be connected to many diverse groups that they are interested in.   See a video about GE’s phenomenal implementation of Enterprise social software here

More connections and relationships reduce turnover
More sophisticated technology has driven the need for a more sophisticated and educated workers…and contributed to the talent war already upon us.  Retaining and attracting talent is a top priority for nearly all companies.  By increasing connections and relationships, Enterprise 2.0 social software also helps reduce turnover by increasing connection and relationship to the company, since the company is often viewed in the eye of relationships within.  Implementing enterprise social software also helps attract and retain talent from the net generation (80 M strong) that likes to work this way and wants to be on the cutting edge.

More connections and relationships help you get things done
Quickly identifying talent or key stakeholders, quickly forming relationships and teams, and then quickly using collaborative technology to work together is all built into many of the Enterprise 2.0 platforms.  As many have said over the years, sometimes it is not about what you know, but who you know.  The good thing about social software is that it helps you know a lot more people and then get things done together.

Emphasis on OPEN TRANSPARENCY increases collaboration and communication
One of the best things about incorporating enterprise 2.0 software is that it makes you and your work transparent, such as:

• who you are (i.e. profiles and talents)
• what are working on (i.e. projects and status feeds)
• what you have done (document repositories and knowledge contributions)
• who you are involved with (communities and groups)

Knowing all of this helps people get past the small talk and discuss and collaborate more about the real issues and activities at work.

Social Text, one of many enterprise team collaboration offerings, illustrates these suggested benefits:

“With Socialtext People, you get social networking deeply integrated with enterprise collaboration. Socialtext People connects work colleagues and gives them a full picture of each other. It gives them the context of the who, what, when, where and why of the people they are working with, building the level of trust they have in each other, and increasing teamwork and work quality. With Socialtext People, everyone is aware of what is going on in the organization – the conversations underway, the thinking in progress, the groups that have formed, who knows what, who is working on what.”

Why is this important to the Enterprise?

More communication makes for better relationships and groups
As Warren Bennis suggests in his book “Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration, “Every man works better when he has companions working in the same line, and yielding to the stimulus of suggestion, comparison, emulation.”

Being aware of what others are working on encourages diverse opinions and cross-functional discussions
For example, if you are micro-blogging about what you are working or your contributions show up in an activity feed, then you are helping others be more conscientious about adding input or ideas to what you are doing. Even if you don’t work in that group or level, being aware of what others are doing encourages diversity of opinion and discussion, something we all support and strive for, but don’t encourage with our  hierarchical structures.

Effective cross-functional collaboration gets people and knowledge out of silos
Once you are out of your silos, you are free to discovering talent and groups of similar interest regardless of hierarchy level and function and location.

More collaboration and communication reduces meetings
Working together online and connecting with groups and communities reduces the number of inefficient meetings and phone calls. For example, traditionally, you might attend a meeting and wait an hour to add your few minutes of input. And in every company, there’s often several people that love to hear themselves talk and talk and talk and many others that don’t feel comfortable sharing opinions in front of others, making meetings dreaded for many of the attendees.

Rather than waiting for a meeting to add one’s input, workers can a) be collaborating before the meeting b) come together in quickly to make critical decisions and then c) add thoughts thereafter to continue the discussion. Discussions and knowledge sharing freely flowing before and after meetings contributes to more effective decisions because you can spend time narrowing in on the issues that truly need face time.

Moreover, meetings are often called to gather status reports and help the manager be aware of everything that has been worked on. But if you can already see much of the work in progress, you have less needs for these type of meetings.

More collaboration and communication reduces travel costs
Virtual collaboration in our globally integrated economy reduces travel costs. Since companies of all sizes are outsourcing and integrating with others, communication and collaboration become more important to keep everyone connected and efficient. Virtual collaboration can reduce a lot of unnecessary local and international trips. Moreover, web conferencing apps and computer cameras applications are making virtual face time more personal.

Individual action no longer suffices with all of our technical complexity
Warren Bennis helps us see why collaboration is crucial in the 21st century.

“And yet we all know that cooperation and collaboration grow more important every day. A shrinking world in which technological and political complexity increase at an accelerating rate offers fewer and fewer arenas in which individual action suffices.”

“In a society as complex and technologically sophisticated as ours, the most urgent projects require the coordinated contributions of many talented people.”

“Asked who will have the most influence on their global organizations in the next ten years, 61 percent responded ‘teams of leaders.’”

Finally and most importantly, effective collaboration improves Innovation. Read why here