Mike and John are talking about their experiences with user adoption over the past decade. John is the Director of Business Systems at Empirix, and Mike is the Senior Partner at Senti.

Key points:
– Empirix – $85 million revenue, 275 employees, high tech manufacturing, lots of different tools.
– seven themes:
– … (1) sticky applications – things that bring people back time-after-time. Eg., lunch/catering, birthdays and milestores, etc.
– … … at Empirix – use links on the SharePoint home page to point at the key applications. Most popular one – the weather bugs. Helps you to see what others are experiencing – great way to open a phone conversation.
– … (2) project design – strategy, vision, sponsorship, ownership; steering committee, and seek early success.
– … … at Empirix – business owner for each site, plus an executive sponsor for overall site collection. Also pay attention to corporate security (types of content, plus user access)
– … … … initial project – partner collaboration portal. Developed a vision that would cover the next 5 years.
– … (3) marketing the solution – branding and naming (don’t talk about SharePoint), segmentation (by constituency)
– … … at Empirix – called it the “Sales Portal.” Did involve the marketing people. Show content/documents that matter to the current user.
– … (4) at deployment – big event at launch, Microsoft’s I Use SharePoint, gamification and badging. Do need to understand culture and context.
– … … at Empirix – for a Type X organization, have done a lot of soft stuff. Key point – “where are users everyday?” Answer – CRM, and so integrated SharePoint with that, employee’s laptops set to HR portal for homepage, practice what you reach (projects managed via SharePoint), and remote old sites and methods (launched the new system, and turned off the file shares the next day). Have a follow-on budget for all projects (allow 75% of the budget for the deployment, and 25% for post-launch).
– … (5) training – various ways of doing this, eg., formal training, lunch and learning, product vs. solution, etc. Will need training for IT groups (on how to deploy and manage SharePoint), and end user training.
– … … at Empirix – launch timed around key events, thus allowing for live training. Also offer webinars, and lunch and learns. There’s an orientation for new employees, as part of the on-boarding process.
– … (6) metrics and measurement – various ways of measuring this.
– … … at Empirix – number of page views, employee recognition for using the tools, public humiliation, suggestion box, users measure support staff, etc.
– … (7) support – various ways of providing support to users. Eg., prepare support teams.
– … … at Empirix – helpdesk support, threaded discussion options, etc.