This is the third of eight posts on the recent Unicom conference “Social Tools for Business Use: Web 2.0 and the new participatory cultures”.

Suw Charman suggested a simple five steps approach to the adoption of social tools in business.  Also, in her introduction, she was at pains to stress that users are not just users, but people like you and I and they need to be treated as such.  Don’t ignore psychology was her overriding message. 

Step 1 Identify key user groups. Find inefficient behaviours and replace them with efficient behaviours.

Step 2 Talk with them.  Find weak spots and turn them into personal benefits.

Step 3 Turn plain users into evangelists.  Take advantage of the loads of unofficial networks within organisations to spread success stories.

Step 4 Turn evangelists into trainers. Keep the training a simple process.

Step 5 Support emergent behaviour.  Allow small talk as it encourages people to use the system and make it better through doing things they like doing (e.g. “place your orders for the Starbucks run on the Team Wiki, I’m leaving in 15 minutes”).

 

Managers need to be seen using the social tools, but they should not mandate them, rather lead by example.

Make support flexible.

Align personal goals and business goals so that they are the same for the individual.

Making life easier is a legitimate goal for introducing social tools.

The biggest enemy of work is time.

Turn bad habits into good habits.

Focus down to each person's daily tasks.

Pick off the low-hanging fruit.