“Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch”

A new ESN tool (IBM Connections, Yammer, Jive, etc.) introduced in an organization triggers a series of things. Some are hesitant to try a new tool. For others would stick with email or other collaboration alternative which they have habituated to use. The biggest challenge is in ESN Tool Adoption . But there are exceptions everywhere and we call them Early Adopters.

Early Adopters do not care for a user manual, nor do they need a push or a reward to get on the new things; they sometimes even leave a feedback for improvement. They would figure out the ways they can use the tool in their work day.

The goal of adoption is to produce more such early adopters by giving them the support they need to use the new tool, then turn the early adopters into sustained users and making the transition appear seamless.

ESN Tool Adoption Kick-start

The first communication to the such Early Adopters (or for all the users in general) to inform about the introduction of the social collaboration tool should address the following dimensions,

• User – What is in it for the user?
• Business – Why is it important for the business? The triads of Money, Time and Effort savings.
• Goal – What do we aim to achieve by using this tool?
• Replacement – Whether this tool serves as a replacement for an existing tool and if it does, what does it replace, why is it being replaced?

Touching these dimensions in your message gives users more reasons for users to adopt.

For more detailed approach to have an effective User Adoption for your Enterprise Social Collaboration tool, take a look here at Maarga’s Collaboration Almanac.