One of the reasons I think you are not seeing good discussion about adoption is that there are very few good examples of adoption of enterprise 2.0 services. If our experience is any indicator of what is going on generally, there are a couple of good reasons for this. With each new client we spend a lot of time struggling to get the approvals of senior execs and IT before we can undertake even modest tests of web 2.0 technologies inside the firewall. Once that hurdle is overcome, then we face an even bigger adoption hurdle: what Andrew McAfee calls, the 9x better than email problem. The perceived value of a new web service has to be 9x greater than email for it to gain any adoption.

I think there are ways to get people to adopt these services but the technology vendors are not offering them (nor should they be expected to). We are trying a few things that I will continue to document in my blog but I believe we need more of a user’s community where people who are working to implement enterprise 2.0 inside their businesses are sharing their experiences. Right now the main forums for writing about this subject are more theoretical than real. That is not bad because theory can precede practice and can give us good mental models for how to proceed. But more is needed.

We have had some success with adoption. Here are some concrete things we have done that may be of help:

1. Make the web service very simple to use – so simple that there is virtually no learning curve. For our new learning network web service we are integrating everything into Netvibes. Users set up a Netvibes account and then go to a start page where feeds can be added with one click. Once the feeds are added to netvibes, everything can bee seen in one consolidated view.

2. Tie the service to a critical business process or need and customize it to that need. Our first learning network is being built around the process of conflict resolution for a customer where conflict is an endemic problem and any performance improvements will make a huge difference to people and to the company.

3. Model best practices. As part of our service we include a Learning Director who models how to work in the next and coaches people on how to work in the world of enterprise 2.0. In my podcast interview Andrew McAfee, we talked about the issue of management in the world of enterprise 2.0. On public web, the peer production services are not managed. They grow and benefit from network effects. How then do you manage “network effects?” This is a big open question that needs work. Because the long tail doesn’t scale down to the enterprise, management does come into play: incentives, rewards, recognition are all critical ingredients to successfully managing networks.

4. Train. Train. Train. People need to be shown not only how to do things but why. To do this, we are using a new low-cost web conferencing service called Adobe Connect and we will be offering weekly web seminars where we make compelling arguments for participation.

These are just baby steps into this new world. To move things to the next level, I plan to do two things: write a white paper on this subject (if you have stories to share, please leave them in the comments section here or email me kathleen@ottergroup.com) and help organize a community of enterprise 2.0 users.