Obstacles to Adoption of Collaborative Systems for Business

Here are some factors to consider when building an online collaboration tool for business.

 

Reasons people will not create content:

1. The "Information is Job Security" mentality.  Make fun of it as much as you wish, there is some truth to the idea that holding back certain key pieces of information can be a method for building job security.  Gatekeepers know that if they gain a reputation for being the only person who can get a certain task done, they will gain repeat customers for this task. I used to scoff at this behavior (being a person who happens to really love sharing information)  However, after being in the trenches of various corporate environments, I no longer scoff at the gatekeeper personality.  I have quite frankly seen that gate-keeping information does sometimes keep more job security.  This is going to be a factor of the corporate culture.  Does your company value personal achievements only, or does it value the people that make up teams that share information and support each other.  If your company only values or appears to value rock stars and people who seem irreplaceable, then your may have trouble convincing people to share the contents of their heads.  After all, part of the reason for capturing knowledge in a collaborative system is that it will remain after the person leaves.  For an employee to want to take extra time to populate a collaborate database, they have to have a certain level of trust that their contribution will be valued more than the fact of them being the only one who knows something.

2. KISS. If your employee takes a look at the workspace and is confused at first glance, they probably will never go back to it. It has to be easy and easy to understand.  Think Facebook.  If you expect your tool or project to take off, make sure that it is dead simple to use.  Busy people have a lot to do, and they can't take time to be trained to use a collaborative system.  It needs to just work, and look and act like tools they may already be familiar with outside the corporate environment.  

3.  Teams need to know they can have privacy for team workspaces and easily be able to tell which spaces are corporate wide and which are team limited.  Do provide some basic training to team leaders for the application so they can set their own security.  I think a proper system would list on the top of the screen what groups have access to the information.  Companies need to keep their intellectual property secure.

4.  No one wants to be the first person out on the dance floor.  We are extremely social creatures and seek to avoid embarrassment at all costs. The make our break of a collaborative system is if it "takes off."  I would strongly consider not only pre-populating some posts, but also make sure there are always fresh posts.  No one wants to post to a dead forum or workspace.  If I were the owner of a collaborative system just getting off the ground I would literally assign content population to a certain number of team members to ensure that there is some use.  Bribes Prizes for people who take the plunge and add their own content may be in order.

5.  People need a sense of ownership.  If it feels cold and disconnected from the people behind the posts, it has less chance of success.  I would have someone go around and take a photo of each team member so you can populate their profile page.  One of the most powerful aspects of electronic collaboration is to allow team members in various locations the ability to have a conversation without having to fly across the globe.  Have a photo next to your name is priceless.

6.  Disconnected systems.  If you want to use your collaborative system to help locate expertise in your organization you need to spend the time to link back end systems.  Populate user profiles with job titles, skill sets, and certifications.  Make sure telephone numbers, BBM pin numbers, email addresses, and other contact information is listed. Avoid duplication of data entry if possible.  Don't throw up a collaborative system out of the box with no links to the other corporate systems or its probably destined to be an orphan application.

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