Inside Knowledge has an article about Euan Semple, knowledge manager at the BBC and his efforts to introduce collaborative tools. It's not a new article, but it's new to me and provides an interesting discussion of ways that people adopt and use new tools. I particularly like his description of people's response to the tools: "Some are very enthusiastic, others are interested, while a third group, which is getting smaller, looks horrified and bored,” he says.

He also talks about the need for enthusiastic early users as well as a critical mass:

The bulletin board is largely self-policing, self-organising and self-managed. To achieve this, Semple says you need a large and diverse group of people. “There’s always an early-adopter hump to get over until enough people are using it. Different interests must be represented for the environment to work as an ecology.” By not pushing the tool too heavily at the start, employees heard about it, used it, found solutions to problems and told others of their experiences. Talk.gateway is now the second most visited site on the intranet, with 8,000 people connecting to it each month, out of approximately 25,000 staff. Discussions range from procurement issues to debates on the BBC’s decision to broadcast Jerry Springer the Opera.

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Web logs (blogs) were the third tool to appear. While many companies still debate their value within an organisational setting, the BBC now has 150 employees blogging. “A big leg-up was when Richard Sambrook, director of World Service and global news, started a blog, which is fan-bloody-tastic,” says Semple. “It’s really authentic. In his own voice he writes about the real issues at work, the challenges his department faces, and external factors and influences. It’s really brave.” Sambrook currently tops the BBC leagues, with 8,000 visitors in just over a month.

...via elearningpost