Driving Technology Within the Rank and File

Accelerating the Diffusion of Technology... No matter which side of the equation you're on, whether it's reinventing a traditional real estate firm or spearheading an emerging dot-com venture, pushing faster adoption of technology is one of your greatest challenges. Bob Lem, head of IT for the global Colliers organization, had these insights. "Real estate is faced with a much more difficult adoption problem than other operational areas such as HR, inventory or accounting, which have much more definable application sets. Because of overlapping functions, between sales and service for example, it is much harder to frame the business problem -- let alone the corresponding IT solution."

A great technology platform will never get adopted if it hasn't responded to the basic business needs. Asking the right questions up front can be the lynchpin to improving ultimate technology adoption rates. Professor Michael Moore of the University of Arizona sets forth five key attributes of innovation to maximize the speed of diffusion: "relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trial-ability, and observability."

Whether your mission involves buy-in of external or internal constituencies, acceptance will increase if answers to the following points are clearly communicated in advance. Is there a distinct benefit to the new technology, a "relative advantage" over what it supersedes? Is the new technology "compatible" with the values and needs of the organization -- or does it create instant conflict? Is the innovation perceived as difficult to understand or has great effort been given to translate its "complexity" into digestible components for even the most technophobic? Is there a means for the new technology to be experimented with on a limited basis -- a period of "trial-ability"? Finally, how are the results made visible to others both inside and outside of the firm? Have the implementers created an on-going medium for "observability?"… Have you incorporated these five attributes into your company's technology planning? Send e-mail to me at ecirco@pikenet.com.

--Eileen