Most companies are bracing for the socialization of the enterprise. Some with fear and trepidation; some with enthusiasm and high expectations. Regardless of where you are in the timeline, what’s clear is the need for hands-on instruction with the folks who will need to be thinking and working a new way– a way that may be alien and outside of their comfort zone.

SoCo Partners offers customized “evangelism” workshops at your office location. It’s imperative to introduce these new concepts to employees in a way that encourages adoption and applies them to every day business processes they already know. With many decades of experience in large enterprises, our approach bridges the past to the future.

We are currently scheduling workshops for the 2010. We will be happy to discuss a unique training and orientation seminar that will gently introduce your employees to prevailing successful socio-collaborative philosophies and methods.  To find out more, simply send us an inquiry to susan (at) socopartners (dot) com.

Interest in the 2.0 Adoption Council has been fantastic. Over forty members have filled our ranks. Each of our members has an extremely demanding day job. Educating, motivating, cajoling, rationalizing, bargaining, organizing, tracking, recruiting, and learning are all part of the job skill requirements. The “Internal Evangelist” (IE) has to carefully balance the needs of the business with an incredible responsibility to drive change in the organization with tools and practices that are outside of the comfort zone of most large enterprise employees, not to mention the pockets of organizational resistance predisposed to preserving Enterprise 1.0.

For this reason, I have decided to award an “Internal Evangelist of the Year.” One member of the 2.0 Adoption Council will be selected to exemplify the tenacity, courage, and sheer energy it takes to inspire a large enterprise to embrace the principles and practices of Enterprise 2.0. The award will be announced at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in San Francisco.

“…the job of the internal evangelist is far, far more difficult. These folks toggle between fighting the good fight every day and then slipping uneasily into a sort of DMZ where they can peek out into the broader community for support and the rejuvenation they need to go on fighting another day. It’s often a thankless job with no clear roadmap for advancement, yet the majority of them do it because they believe in the principles of the 2.0 movement. I celebrate them!”

Please feel free to nominate someone who you believe is deserving of this award. If they’re not a member of the Council already, I will be happy to extend an invite. Refer the individual to me on my LinkedIn profile. We’re still screening candidates via LinkedIn.

This post is cross-posted from the Enterprise 2.0 Conference blog:
It was fantastic to meet so many customers this year struggling with the issue of adoption in their enterprise. The following is a post I published today on my ITSinsider blog. I hope you will join this community of your peers so we can share the burden and the joy of bring 2.0-style democratization and collaboration benefits to your company.

Cross-posted from ITSinsider

Yes, the baby was born in ‘06, started crawling in ‘07, and now is running around like a maniac with boundless energy in ‘09. The Enterprise 2.0 movement is now a healthy child, growing stronger and more willful every day (just a cabinet door away from getting into trouble…) I returned from the Enterprise 2.0 conference this week rejuvenated, as I’d hoped to.

The number UNO issue on the minds of this year’s customer conference attendees was: HOW THE >>>> DO WE DO THIS??? Customers wanted to hear from other customers, not us (the so-called experts in Enterprise 2.0). The best sessions for me were definitely the unconference sessions where real practitioners could talk frankly about their challenges and share their successes.

Listening to customers during the conference, as well as culling the data that has been coming in from various surveys, I’ve decided the time is right to launch a community for “Internal 2.0 Evangelists.” As I’ve been a 2.0 Evangelist for the broader sector (and I thought my job was difficult), I realized the job of the internal evangelist is far, far more difficult. These folks toggle between fighting the good fight every day and then slipping uneasily into a sort of DMZ where they can peek out into the broader community for support and the rejuvenation they need to go on fighting another day. It’s often a thankless job with no clear roadmap for advancement, yet the majority of them do it because they believe in the principles of the 2.0 movement. I celebrate them!

So, that said, I’ve begun the 2.0 Adoption Council on LinkedIn. Once we reach a critical mass, we will be moving the Council to a more fluid socio-collaborative platform. If you are a customer of a large enterprise rolling out an enterprise 2.0 initiiative, you are invited to join the Council. Here is a LinkedIn invite I sent to some key customer contacts that explains the Council’s mission and goals:

You can reach me on LinkedIn on my profile if we’re not already connected. Send me a note you want to join, and I’ll send you an invite. The Council is free; there are no strings attached. Andrew McAfee has joined the Council, as well as several prestigious global enterprises.

The raw material of the post-industrial era is human capital, and never before has it been easier and less expensive to harvest the talent in an organization to introduce innovation and spark creativity.

The presentation is posted below. I would love to present this material to your organization. Contact me to arrange a private briefing.

For many decades now, executives have overused the tired maxim, “our greatest asset is our people.” If you believe that, then give your people a voice. Put a tool in their hands that will enable them to revolutionize their workplace. Encourage them to start blogging about their day job. Give all your employees the opportunity to collaborate on corporate-wide wikis for their projects and process improvements.  Experiment with a social networking platform like Facebook or Twitter which answers the question, “What are you doing?” The more your employees are connected to each other and the outside world, the easier the ideas will flow about how to add value to the company.

Unlocking the intellectual horsepower of your talent base is the competitive weapon of this new century. Your talent will make the difference as you navigate the tough economic climate that faces the global economy. The next generation coming into the workforce, as well as the digerati generation currently entrenched, naturally embraces and champions web 2.0 technology. Even though some of us are a few steps behind this new generation, we need to recognize web 2.0’s liberating potential and open our minds to the possibilities it will deliver for our employees, our customers, our suppliers, and our shareholders. The closer we’re connected, the less distant we are from the truth about our markets. We need to foster a corporate culture of collaboration and sharing, openness and honesty, truth and transparency—trusting our most valuable resource, our people, to turn our organizations upside down and sideways— shaking out the dead wood and letting the brilliance rise to the top.

It starts with you– leading by example.  Go bottom feeding to fortify your fiscal health.