I gave a talk and a workshop at the excellent Portals conference from Shared Insights. One big question from people at my talks was: How do we get stared? How do we get adoption?

I advise starting small, finding pain or pleasure points and prototyping a few things that are not risky from a security or compliance standpoint. This week one of my favorite bloggers, Andrew McAfee also has some good suggestions for gaining adoption:

The great majority of companies today are far from this scenario because their empty quarters are so large. Are there effective ways to evangelize within it and convert people to Enterprise 2.0 tool use? One strategy is to keep working on the tools themselves, making them more obvious and easy to use. This is certainly a good idea, but I don't have a lot of confidence that it'll bear a lot of fruit in the empty quarter. Old habits die hard, and the 9X problem of email is particularly acute among non-techies.

A more promising strategy, I believe, lies at the intersection of coaching, leading by example, and policy-setting. Of these, policy setting is the least obvious and most risky — what would a pro-blogging policy look like, and what would keep it from backfiring? I've heard a couple clever examples. A Google employee at a conference I attended, for example, said that employees there sent a short (five line) email to a specific address each week, telling what they'd done. These became part of a searchable archive.

I haven't yet been able to verify that this is a widespread practice there, but if it is one of its smartest features is how lightweight it is. A five-line email is perceived as freeform and fast to compose, so it's not a burdensome requirement.

Other lightweight Enterprise 2.0 policies might include:

* Maintain a blog for your group / department. Identify who's in charge of it, and update it at least once a week.

* Maintain a blog for each project your lab is working on. Post whatever non-confidential information you'd like your colleagues to know about each one.

* Keep your personal page up to date. Make sure it lists your areas and industries of expertise.

* Use the wiki to make sure your portion of the org chart is up to date.

I suspect that these policies will work exactly to the extent that managers follow up on them and see if they're being followed. This is where coaching comes in — the right way to foster adherence to Enterprise 2.0 policies is not by yelling at those who fall behind, but by nudging them a bit and reminding them why it's important to comply. And leading by example, of course, is an unparalleled way to build credibility.

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