Comments on: Learn to Walk Before You Run

By: Justifying Social Media to the Big Wigs | Social Media Strategery

Justifying Social Media to the Big Wigs | Social Media Strategery — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 04:19:37 +0000

[...] they’ll also be able to post their thoughts directly to the article. This is a great “learn to walk before run” [...]

By: sradick

sradick — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 07:13:58 +0000

@DB – I don’t know if anything like this exists, or even it would be helpful if it did exist. What would count as a good adoption rate? How do you define success? These are very specific to the organization, and what’s considered success at one would be considered failure at another. For example, isn’t it something like 90% of the edits on Wikipedia are from 5% of the users (don’t quote me on those exact numbers, but it’s close). Would you aim for those percentages on an internal wiki? Why or why not?

I just don’t know how you would gather this information in a meaningful way that would apply to another organization.

By: sradick

sradick — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 07:13:00 +0000

I just don’t know how you would gather this information in a meaningful way that would apply to another organization.

By: sradick

sradick — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 07:09:22 +0000

@Kelcy – Oh, I completely agree with you about the generational thing. I can’t stand when people say, “I’m old – that stuff is for young kids!” No, it’s not because you’re old – it’s because you don’t want to learn something new. I’m not saying that they didn’t use the wiki because they were old – I was just stating that the fact that they were older wasn’t even considered.

You’re right on about Intellipedia though – I know there are quite a few people who spent countless hours coaching/facilitating/educating any and everyone. That’s why it’s succeeded, because they didn’t use the “hey – here’s a wiki so everyone come and use it” approach. The reason it’s been successful is due in large part, to the reasons you mention above. And why? Because you’re not focusing on the technology, you’re focusing on what the technology enables.

By: sradick

sradick — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 07:09:00 +0000

By: Kelcy

Kelcy — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 02:30:55 +0000

The only thing I have to question is the statement that they weren’t using the wiki because they were in older generations and had never learned to collaborate. If you look at the stats on contributing to Wikipedia you find that there are a very high percentage of older editors. Most of the younger editors tend to consume. So it’s never a good thing to assume that a particular technology is the best one for the type of collaboration that an organization is hoping for.

The Intellipedia success story was not about delivering the technology and hoping they would use it. There was a whole lot of coaching, facilitating, evangelizing and probably some begging going on. Everyone keeps forgetting the value of those who act as the coaches or facilitators. These are the folks who are not only working through problems with the technology but helping build collaborative networks both at the user level and the superuser level (the coaching/facilitating network who oversees what is going on). Without them as part of the change strategy, it won’t happen.

By: Kelcy

Kelcy — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 02:30:00 +0000

By: DB

DB — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 21:02:37 +0000

Any statistics on adoption rates and times for internal social networking? Something like the Standish Report on Enterprise software failure rates?

Enjoy the conference!

By: DB

DB — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 21:02:00 +0000

Any statistics on adoption rates and times for internal social networking? Something like the Standish Report on Enterprise software failure rates?

Enjoy the conference!

By: JE

JE — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 20:11:10 +0000

This is exactly the point I’ve been making in my management class. Too often organizatons are implementing SM apps without evaluating the need or strategies. What we end up with is organizations who have websites that are littered with outdated or inactive 2.0 apps. I would say these are generally the kinds of organizations with the communication problems that could be remedied by a properly integrated SM app. These organizations need people, like you, who see the benefit and have the motivation to make it work.