Helping with implementation – all in all getting projects up in the aír is what makes me tick as a consultant, and is what I deeply care about. So this quote disturbed me a bit:
[…] Often, just a great tool alone is not sufficient to achieve sustainable usage. I would even say that the technology, the tool itself, is only 20% of the business. The other 80% is convincing, promotion, and making the users aware of your solution.
A while ago, somebody showed me the results of a study on: what are the critical factors to make Knowledge Management initiatives successful? […] Anyhow, the two key drivers were identified as:
- perceived usefulness [for users]
- perceived management support (via)
<rant>Two key drivers? Both with a heavy focus on people aspects. Nothing else? Nothing valuable to be found in and about strategy, culture, structures and systems? I am perfectly sure that it’s necessary to provide more pillars to both Knowledge Management and #e20 initiatives. That is, if you want to have a sound foundation (whoa, funny metaphors have no limits for me today, yes).
Now, one could place people at the center of actions and reasoning (after all, it’s called social web for a reason, this arena is inhabited by complex adaptive systems aka humans) but at least Enterprise 2.0 initiatives comprise a lot more pillars, with changing importance and relevance (dependent on the actual context, actual phase of implementation etc.). So focusing on the people side of things (and yes, I know, managers are people too) can become dangerous, ie. when it neglects other factors, thus risking the balance of the construction site. I thought this to be common knowledge.</rant>
PS. Somebody from my #e20 Twitter list recommended the quoted blog post on Twitter – and now you see me ranting about it. I have growing doubts whether twitter is a viable tool for recommendation and link sharing. It’s way too easy to RT on Twitter without actually reading the albeit short blog post. Yes, too much fluff, too little thought on Twitter these days. But I wouldn’t have written that post if the reasoning inside it didn’t bother me, so some thanks go to Twitter for disturbing my calm.
PPS. CC image by Jakob Montrasio – a two-pillars construction-site that’s actually working.
[…] through social software in the enterprise comes to mind … well, yes this needs some serious multi-pillar implementation efforts to succeed) and overall how a (shared) sense of purpose can be entertained be agreed upon be […]