From Intermittent to Connected — Help Your Users Embrace Lotus Connections

Michael Sampson, principal industry analyst and consultant, The Michael Sampson Company Limited


April, 2009

Convincing end users to adopt new social software tools such as IBM Lotus Connections can be challenging. Discover why users are afraid to embrace new tools and learn about three different strategies for increasing user adoption of Connections. Find out why it’s so important to not only show users how Connections functions, but also how they can use it to improve their own efficiency.

Increasing user adoption is a common challenge for organizations that introduce collaboration and social software tools such as IBM Lotus Connections. Administrators often find it difficult to teach business users how new tools can help them in their work. People are busy, and in today’s economic maelstrom, people are scared. In such times, the safe approach is to stay with what you know given the inherent productivity and efficiency of this option.
Your goal is not just that IT implement Connections perfectly; you want it to improve the lives of your employees and customers, and ultimately improve the performance of your organization. So, how do you break through end users’ resistance to Connections and encourage effective user adoption?
I’ll explore the key fears that end users have when facing a new set of work tools and then introduce three strategies you can follow to encourage effective user adoption with Connections. After reading this article, you’ll be better prepared to train your end users and effectively persuade them to use Connections regularly.

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