I’m still reflecting on the the day spent with some very passionate and knowledgeable internal communications folks at SwoopChat in NYC a few weeks ago. This user event featured many short, impressive presentations from larger organizations implementing enterprise social platforms. The stories of successes and challenges were shared with candor and energy and all were very well received. Yet interesting as they were, tales of challenges that each organization shared were, in varying degrees, the same between them and also were identical to what I’ve been hearing for about 10 years! Low leader engagement, numerous ghost town groups, non-work conversations, low adoption, etc. In 10 years of enterprise social, where the tools have gained new features and functions as well as new players too, the same pains around human behavior exist, the same exact ones. All these folks in attendance got it though which was refreshing as they very much understood the emphasis had to be on people, their needs, and their work and not on fancy features. And yet 10 years, same stories, same issues because the one thing that hasn’t changed, the one thing that few will admit is flawed are the organizations themselves. The leadership, the hierarchy, the fear, the flippancy remain barriers because the very systems we deploy collaborative platforms in don’t support or encourage the openness and collaboration we need.
If the workplace doesn’t work how can we expect our tools to?
