How much money are you wasting on technology today? Many technology products have failed at organizations (or in the marketplace) because its owner assumed it was just so cool that everyone would flock to using it. Regrettably, that’s just not reality. No matter how “cool” the technology may be people tend to keep doing whatever they’ve done all along – meaning nothing new will establish itself in an organization unless there is an active project to drive its use.
That’s exactly the story for visual collaboration / videoconferencing. This is a very powerful tool that organizations can use to transform the way they do business, but all of the predicted ROI and benefits don’t happen if the technology doesn’t get used.
What I frequently ask technology managers to do is compare the planning and effort used for implementing a technology (project managers, written plans, schedules, targets, metrics, timelines, recurring meetings, etc.) with the time and effort put into the usage and adoption plan. If they are not equal efforts then utilization will fall short of the ideal — and often far short — leading to disappointment and negative perceptions of what should be a great technology.
