Emanuele Quintarelli's Library tagged "lessons learned" → View Popular

It’s a classic adage that we usually learn more from our failures than from our successes. I’ve find this line of reasoning with Enterprise 2.0 failures to be fascinating because of how very different it’s often turning out to be from traditional IT projects.

For one, IT doesn’t seem to be in the driver’s seat nearly as much with Enterprise 2.0. In fact, the initiative is frequently coming from the business side. Two, as the latest case studies emerge and are analyzed, it is grassroots efforts that often end up being the most successful, bubbling up and then across the organization, only then to be formally adopted later. And three, many so-called Enterprise 2.0 projects are local, unblessed, informal uses of social computing software which — by their very nature — are less compliant with enterprise technology standards, legal/HR guidelines, and corporate policy.

The point here is that many Enterprise 2.0 tools are often used widely in organizations without tacit approval.

* It starts strong in a single department and then never makes it out.
* Selecting the tools first
* Selecting the wrong tools and sticking with them
* There are no resources allocated to adoption and training
* It’s purely an IT initiative
* The effort excludes IT
* Engaging with HR, legal, branding, compliance, etc. too soon
* Pushing Enterprise 2.0 as a generic toolbox instead of the solution to specific problems
* Lack of effective executive champions
* Lack of effective participants: Empty blogs, wikis, or silent social networks
* No long term plan or budget for governance, community management, upgrades, or maintenance
* Failure to draw in key influencers as adoption broadens
* Building it all as a self-contained, top-down effort
* Not waiting long enough to let critical mass build

Enterprise 2.0 is unique, however, in the respect that there is virtually no technology risk but there is much higher risk when it comes to people and organizational issues. Social computing in the enterprise is most successful when there is a healthy commu