If You Build It Will They Come?

I’m talking about an in-firm collaborative work site or social networking site or something similar.  If you build one, will come?

No.  At least not with a whole lot of work on your part.  This isn’t Iowa, Shoeless Joe.

More and more firms are going down this road, and I think it’s a good one. But you really need to think it through.

The biggest problem people make is they think they’re building a website.  You’re not.  You’re building a community that just happens to gather on a website.  It’s not about the technology.  It’s about the people and the social contract between them.

I’ve been in on a few planning sessions of organizations that get enamored with this technology, and a lot of time is spent on discussing features of the site, “Web two-point-oh” and the like.  Forget the features–you can always add or change those later.  

Instead, try to figure out how you will drive people to the site.  Plan on spending the first 6 months to a year addressing this one issue.  There are a variety of techniques and tricks you can use, and you’ll have to use all of them and make up some more.  You will have to assign one person the task of driving people to the site and that person will have to be relentless, and imaginative and have a thick skin and a good sense of humor. 

If you stick with it, you can create a site that is self sustaining and that becomes part of the culture of the organization.  But don’t underestimate what it will take to do that.  It will make building a baseball field in the middle of an Iowa cornfield seem like a walk in the park

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