We had a fascinating experience with regard to people using our wiki tool.  We have opened it up to the 3 external user groups (clients and partners) over the past couple of months to let them play in a collaborative environment.  In each case we have given a very limited explanation and sat back to watch.

In the latest case a group of lets say 30+ something used it to aggregate what they wanted to get out of a workshop with us.  The aim was to get round the "Here's my agenda but what do you want to get out of this session".

The behavioural traits were these:

• Someone obliterated the whole thing, due to challenges with the UI

• Most people treated the body of the wiki as an alternative to email.  Ie they wrote formal message to us, explaining what they each wanted.

• Some admitted that they felt anxious with the experience and that they felt pressure to add something even if someone else had covered their points.

• AND most significantly the head of the group, even though he had asked for this, admitted he could not explain to the others what the point was.

Noone used the tool as a way to refine the agenda to meet their needs.  All did not want to mess with the original content.  At Trovus these experience are adding to our understanding of how people interact with the web and collaborative applications.

With the roll out of Sharepoint and other collaboration platforms on the increase, why is it that these reactions are not be common to most people within an organisation.   One very astute observation came from an investment banker in the group who, clearly based on what he has seen around him, suggested that collaboration tools are only valuable to people who have nothing else to do.  Clearly that is not the case where the tools are deployed as a solution to address the appropriate communications challenges, but for many who do not find this a natural working format, they will struggle with the adoption of collaboration.  It will be seen as "another thing I have to learn" until they realise that it is something that truly allows technology to work for you rather than against you.

Addressing these behavioural challenges is clearly the key to unlocking the potential value.  Many are facing this challenge today and Trovus is sharing its learning and gaining learning from each customer engagement.

We are very excited about the growth in our business in supporting organisation with the adoption of collaboration technologies.  I would challenge anyone to be an expert in supporting collaboration around a business.  Euan's experience at the BBC told he clearly that the users who define much of the value for themselves.  At Trovus we believe that combining logical best practice of application adoption with the shared experience of others will take you a long what to ensuring you underwrite the investment you are making.

Comments

There are currently 2 comments about this blog.

Mark Storrar, 3 months ago

Interesting stuff, I'm looking forward to reading a lot more and obliterating a lot less!

Deb Richardson, 3 months ago

Ed - thanks for the experience and adding to our ever expanding knowledge of what you can do for our clients - Deb

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