I wanted to chip in on the adoption dialogue started a few days ago.
I’d classify my post as a volley based on raw experience and very free form, so bear with me.

The thing I’ve learned the most from my own adoption is that your e2.0 road is paved (or under construction) with all sorts of good intentions. You just have to dive in. Have you tried to explain how you learned to use social bookmarking? Or how you use RSS?
There’s an undeniable simplicity to a lot of this enterprise 2.0 stuff. A lot of it boils down to exposure and a commitment to learn.

Think about why you became an expert on information management or blogging. Was it your quest for knowledge? Was it because your a tinkerer? Or was it your personal goal to make a comeback after failing at so many futile KM projects? Point is, our motivations for recognizing the importance and need for enterprise 2.0 are many and diverse. So taking a crack at what drives e2.0 is a shotgun blast at best. 

Most of what I’ve seen and heard throughout the discussions deals with the traditional enterprise battles we fight everyday. Business case, ROI, technology alignment with business strategy..all relevant but very tired and beaten down. As the beat down continues, I think you’ll see larger forces start to supplant the more traditional triggers that drive corporate adoption.

Larger force #1 - The New Media Breakdown

What I’m seeing is what I’d call a “new media nervous breakdown”. Clients are being pressured by their customers, their next door neighbor, or Joe in marketing to come into the fold. That fold is the internet. And like it or not, putting the web to work for business involves a lot of what we’re classifying as enterprise and web 2.0. It’s no coincidence we recommend so many Web 2.0 approaches to leveraging the web — often they’re the easiest way to take that first plunge.

Larger force #2 - Big software companies

Like it or not the Googles and Microsofts will drive a lot of the enterprise adoption. We’ve already seen the Google effect on everything from search to web-based email and collaboration. You can only ignore the “Docs & Spreadsheets” link in your GMail for so long. Show me someone that’s used Google Docs a few times and I’ll show you someone ready to carry the e2.0 torch. RSS adoption soon will also take a huge leap when users see it baked into every nook and cranny in Vista.

An as far as tips go, mine are:

1. Be an educator. People want to learn. As they learn about what’s changing on the web, they’ll naturally seek out a comfortable starting point.
2. Paint a picture and tell a story. Most folks have used Microsoft Word. Show them how publishing to a blog is akin to creating Word docs.
3. Start small and build value incrementally. We’re all obsessed with speed, but doing it right the first time holds more water. There’s no stopwatch on you.
4. Be painfully clear about the reason you’ve decided to adopt a certain approach.
   HINT: “Better collaboration” isn’t enough. If you can’t describe it in simple business terms, you’re wasting your time.
5. Let go and break stuff. Assuming we’ve done our job, users shouldn’t be able to mess things up under usual circumstances. Once people figure out they can back out of something and its integrity can easily be restored, adoption increases.
6. Show how enterprise 1.0 and 2.0 coexist. We could talk about this one for days. 
   If you show users how their workflow can peacefully live right beside the new gadget on the block, anxiety diminishes and the exploration begins.
7. Don’t discuss or describe capabilities in vendor terms. If you’re telling users the value of what they’re doing lies in “private labeling a b2b MySpace that leverages user-generated content to build community” they’ll probably label you a dotcommer and spew bubble 2.0 connotations.