As the saying goes, you can bring a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. And you can create a great new KM product that facilitates communication and collaboration among knowledge workers, something that most of us would consider a good thing, yet it can languish, unused. It's a common problem, according to Michael Chender, who says "numerous collaborative systems have been implemented at enormous expense within companies and then rarely used...." in his article in the Nov./Dec. issue of Intranets, where he addresses the phenomena of the unused application, giving hints on how to maximize usage.
Chender further explains that though technology is powerful, ultimately the success of these corporate applications are dependent upon the willingness of individuals to participate. How do you increase the likelihood of that happening? User groups should be involved in the development process, helping to define the system that they'll be expected to use. In addition, individual contributions should credited and visible and the people you're depending upon need to see evidence that they will benefit from its use.
Of course, this won't happen unless the application has an intuitive design, "organized around a users needs and work flow."
Thinking through all of thes issues BEFORE starting work on a new application is definitely critical to its succes.
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