Adoption of any initiative in an orginazation, whether it be Web 2.0 applications or not, is critical to the success of the deployed application. Successful adoption of the new applications is also vital to the person who is the sponsor or stake holder of the project.
Many times with Enterprise 2.0 you must rely on good planning as well as a little luck. The most difficult part about Web 2.0 is being able to justify an ROI (Return On Investment) early on in a project. I recommend you never make promises on social computing applications in your Enterprise because they can be very fickle to "control". By "control" I mean that they can be diffiult to get people to use them the way you intended, or the way you want them to.
Part of the secret of the success of Web 2.0 is that the end users figure out how to best use an application the way they like and are able to collaborate in their own way. Another part of the secret is to allow your users the flexibility to modify, change, or enhance the application to meet their needs, on their schedule. If you are an executive and you just read that, I am sure you are feeling uneasy about trusting me now. But trust me, this is one way you can make it work. The great part about these social applications is that there isn't an exact way to make them work, but rather 100 ways for users to succeed in their goals.
Here are some items that I will cover in the future that will help you succeed with the adoption of your social computing or Web 2.0 applications:
- A good Collaboration Strategy
- Clear goals on what constitutes success (this might be part of your strategy)
- Social Computing company leaders
- Fairly quick response time for applications
- Reasons to have collaborative applications
Although you may have success in the absence of some of the items listed above, it will be a lot easier if you have these items in place.
