How to make coworkers adjust to new collaboration tools

Having tried a few collaboration tool websites throughout our class and reading the articles assigned this week, I found there are so many useful stuffs that I didn’t even know and sometimes I think to myself I wish I had known them when I was in the newspaper organization.

However, I’m not quite sure my organization would have used them effectively, even if we had been aware of them. Recalling experiences in the organization, even small attempts to change, which I had regarded as nothing, wasn’t easy for the coworkers to adjust to at all. There was resist against change and the coworkers didn’t get familiar with the change easily.


After all,
the thing was how collaboratively and effectively people use them as intended, no matter how powerful collaboration tools are.


In this regard, the following tips Robert D. Hof suggested in the Business week article are very simple but very essential.

Indeed, my adventure into Web collaboration suggests a number of lessons about how organizations can get people to try this stuff: 1) Keep it simple. 2) No, even simpler. 3) No matter how good the collaboration tool, you may have to knock some heads to force people out of old habits. 4) Leave room for what still works: Sometimes, nothing beats a phone call, a face-to-face meeting, or even (gasp) e-mail.

I’d like to listen to your experiences about the difficulties to adjust new tools and your own secrets to solve the problem.