A very interesting article on McKinsey Quarterly complements our research on the consumption and adoption of Web 2.0 products and services. The article, 6 Ways to Make Web 2.0 Work, provides tips from the core of 50 indepth interviews with leading organizations.
In the article, six ways refer to the:
- need for top level support – what doesn't need top level support these days?;
- best uses comes from users – McKinsey consultants report "the applications that drive the most value through participatory technologies often aren’t those that management expects";
- what's in the workflow is what gets used. If they're extra tasks, they'll not be used. Engineers at Google, for example, use blogs and wikis to provide progress updates on their work.
- appeal to participants' egos and needs – cash isn't enough or not even required. The steel company, ArcelorMittal found that giving awards at major employee events generated more, higher quality wiki articles than giving them out at less significant events.
- the right solution comes from the right participants – getting new product ideas from visitors to the corporate website will be low quality (generally).
- balance risk – the biggest fear of using Web 2.0 technologies is concerns on how to deal with dissent, or inappropriate content. The HR and legal departments struggle with how to establish and enforce appropriate policies. But history has shown that requiring authenticated commentary (no anonymous posting) is the key to relying on peer pressure and ego to assure the freedom-integrity boundaries are properly managed, and properly self-managed.
