Companies often try to deploy collaborative solutions that are disconnected from their business, and face serious adoption challenges as employees struggle to see their relevance and value. These solutions eventually fade away while the stakeholders wait for the cargo to arrive (see “cargo cult“) and users find other ways to communicate.
The transformational power of an Enterprise 2.0 initiative lies in fostering and/or amplifying a real collaborative culture using tools that over time will integrate with the organization’s core systems, data stores and business processes. This requires strong sponsorship, a cross-functional team and focus on culture and process change. The diagram below illustrates three key layers to deploy and sustain a collaborative platform.
Enablers provide the infrastructure and change management support that underpins the Enterprise 2.0 (or Intranet 2.0) initiative. They continuously adapt the infrastructure and remove obstacles to maintain the right conditions for success.
Stewards are the content catalysts that make sure the solution is always in motion. They break the initial inertia and work with enablers to keep momentum. They play a key role in sustaining and curating the platform. Stewards know how to navigate the waters to maximize the wind in their sail… and when there is no wind, they are the motor that keeps the sailboat moving.
Users represent the broadest layer and are ultimately what sustains everything else (no more sailing analogies?). Individuals play different roles at different times as their level of engagement and collaboration needs change over time.
I’d love to hear your feedback.
... or not 
Thanks for the diagram. It’s a really good diagram. If you’re looking for the people involved in the process I believe you’ve captured it. There are of course other layers that could be dropped in (change management, adoption strategy, objectives, tools, etc.) but you’ve done a great job capturing the human resources needed to deploy and maintain an Enterprise 2.0 solution.
Thanks Mark. I wanted to focus on the people in this diagram for one important reason: I think that the “team structure” is the foundation from which we will put in place all the other layers you mention (adoption, tools, changes management, etc. – check this other diagram). Therefore how we structure the team will have fundamental impact on everything else we do.
Creating the right team structure is in a way, the first cultural challenge that many companies will face when starting a serious Enterprise 2.0 initiative. Collaboration projects need to start walking the talk and structure themselves for collaboration. This shifts the emphasis from the “build once and deploy” mindset to a more organic and iterative growth approach that relies less on up-front planning and more on maintaining the conditions for the solution to evolve.
Cheers,
Alex
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I totally agree with the three categories: enablers, stewards and users.
Currently we are planning for introduction of 2.0 applications and we are pinpointing enablers and stewards. Both are extremely important. Enablers to even have the opportunity to increase communication and knowledge. Stewards to make new functionality successful. Users the – well if we don’t succeed in introducing them to new ways of communicating then all our work is a sunk cost.
This is a good perspective to the people side of enterprise management. I’m involved with a new nonprofit association called Enterprise Management – International. http://www.ema-i.org. It would be interesting to have you participate with how this would integrate into the other management activities associated with strategic change at the enterprise level.