Now that the dust has settled from the Deloitte acquisition of BearingPoint earlier this year, Nate Nash writes that the enterprise wiki project he and Jay Hariani started at BearingPoint will continue under the Deloitte umbrella:

After 3 months of a painful regression through file uploads, track changes, and hourly knowledge assassinations from email, I could not be happier to again, author content in Confluence. We are essentially starting over in the adoption marathon at our new company.

He reviews several lessons he learned from the past adoption efforts:

The real “experts” out there are the employees with their heads down, screaming like a banshee for a better way to work. They don’t need a strategy. They need permission and a tool that will enable them to serve as a vanguard for the organizationally elite . They will guide the rest of the herd, knowingly or not. And don’t call them early adopters. Call everyone else late.

“Culture” can be a tricky devil in the world of limited choice. Maybe your organization hoards information because they have never been given an option otherwise. Don’t presuppose any of the actions of the crowd. Go into projects with a focus on flexibility and agile adaptation to the movements of the masses.

It really is about the tools, and the best strategy comes from running a small pilot, working out the kinks, telling a good story with relevant examples from the pilot, giving people permission and encouragement to find the best uses, and letting them guide their peers.