Work Skills Gap Hinders Enterprise 2.0 Adoption
It seems there is mounting acknowledgment that knowledge work skills are hindering the adoption of Enterprise 2.0 tools.
In a recent article in CIO Australia -Enterprise 2.0 - What is it good for?
Eli Weir, CTO of Seattle-based Visible Technologies - “How helpful is it to replace overstuffed e-mail inboxes with a confusing jumble of wikis, blogs and RSS feeds?â€
Web 2.0 and the Workplace : is the Enterprise 2.0 real? lists as a primary barrier:
“… transforming the skill set which is necessary for success in the workplace.â€
In Barriers to Enterprise 2.0 Adoption:
Among other barriers talks about the education and training on the product suite
- Myth of easy to use and anyone can do it
- Differences in business use versus personal use
- Multiple methods of education; online, onsite, casting, and user guides
- Need pattern libraries for multiple use case implementations
Each of these is talking in terms of the adoptions of tools. We see this as a bigger than just around “the product suite.†In other words how do knowledge workers learn this new way of thinking, working, learning?
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June 3rd, 2008 at 1:34 pm
I was inspired by this post to describe how I learned to use these new tools and offer suggestions that others might find helful - http://joanvinallcox.wordpress.com/2008/06/03/how-to-get-efficient-at-using-your-computer/
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:45 pm
I agree that this is THE major challenge for Enterprise 2.0.
The often cited 90:9:1 ratio (which overlooks the 900 not even reading dynamic web content !) is not really an issue for Web 2.0 - but for these tools to succeed in the workplace, the adoption rates will need to be much higher (e.g. to be effective in helping companies ‘know what they know’)
I’d suggest that the technology champions can value from partnering with change-management (organisational development/HR) professionals to tackle this.
see: http://learningconsultant.blogspot.com/2008/02/implementation-20.html
June 3rd, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Joan - great post - thanks for the pointer.
John - I somewhat agree with you that involving OD/HR/CM folks makes sense. However, I’ve been struck with the fact that they do not appear to be even early majority adopters.
The link to change or die is quite scary what we might be up against.
June 3rd, 2008 at 10:33 pm
I blogged about this internally, from a different perspective. I develop technical training courses, and I am also a graduate student in an Instructional Design program. I am finding - at work and in my interactions with classmates - that not many people are proficient at using these tools.
If educators don’t even use the tools yet, how can we help bridge that skills gap?
June 5th, 2008 at 9:30 am
This blog made of how we have transitioned other technologies into our society in the past. I wonder if we are asking too much of people to constantly change tools instead of asking them to look at how these new technologies can fill in the gaps for tools they currently have.
Specifically, I asked the following questions on my blog :
1. Do late adopters need to have “directions” or at least a protocol for use (e.g. through standardized training, later versions that have support in learning how to use the mechanism built in, tips or instructions available in various formats)?
2. Are new technologies hitting the mature stage earlier (changing the product maturity curve) or having a greater number of early and late adopters earlier (changing the adaptation curve) or do we just expect that because of the pace of our society?
3. What was the process in the past that helped to change curriculum, training, and user awareness as a result of the introduction of new technology? In other words, if we were to look at the integration of film into education, radio into education, or even mimiographs, what lead up to the point where it was acceptable to use these technologies in education? What ground work needed to be laid?