Mauro Cardarelli asks the right question, i.e. whether organizations are ready for collaboration software. He puts it like this:
I ask “Is SharePoint scalable [in this organization]?” That is, can this company set the proper governance policies and business process changes to maximize its SharePoint investment to take advantage
Well, on the one hand this is true, but do we always need to fiddle with business processes? Software should be freeform and adaptable to a variety of organizational settings, and social software in the enterprise starts with this premise. In fact I would argue that one huge advantage of e.g. wikis in the workplace is that they can adapt to a multitude of settings …
But his requirements (and best practices) for implementation projects are good:
It starts with building the right advisory team and setting the proper procedures (in writing) that define the guidelines for all users to maximize their experience as consumers AND contributors of corporate content. With that, SharePoint scales… throughout the organization… into your partner/client community… and out into the internet world.
No arguing with this, especially the right staffing of an advisory team (and perhaps also employing external specialist consultants like me, hint hint …) is important.