Breaking down corporate brick walls?

My good friend and fellow Enterprise Irregular Dennis Howlett raised an issue in regards adoption of (or lack thereof) Enterprise 2.0 software: 

"my experience suggests that while there are plenty of gr8 ideas 'enterprise' represents a daunting brick wall for many entrepreneurs. I'd like to help break that down if I can."

Two important terms should be noted; "brick wall" and "break that down".

The wall is there for a reason; to defend status quo and keep things quiet so we can leave our offices early and in general have as little upheaval as possible. 

That said, fellows like Dennis and myself are of the kind that immediately want to break down stupid walls, good for us, but there are smarter ways:

Mr. Tzu (first name Sun) would have told us to avoid the wall. That's built to defend. Walk around it. Avoid it altogether. 

Secondly Mr. Tzu would have said something along the lines of "if you want to avoid detection and move quietly around the defence you must not approach with drums and flags and masses of troops".

Did large corporate sales departments knock on CEO doors supported by big noisy campaigns trying to push e-mail to the corporate world? Quiet, bottom up, around-the-wall, don't ask for permission easier to ask for forgiveness, under the radar, back door - that worked without a word in the papers.

In practice: 

• One must solicit the aid of those who's daily life is bettered and not ask the powers for permission.
• Implementation must be incremental.
• Costs must be under-the-radar and coffee budget sized.
• Don't try to take hostages, they hate that and it'll only bog you down. 

In other words, getting new stuff that would challenge the status quo into corporations requires such to be designed following these rules:

• Deliver instant and daily value for the end user. Forget about ROI and other mumbo-jumbo meant for the higher ups. Instant value for me as a user rules. (See e-mail example).
• Start small anywhere, grow in any direction at any time whenever the users are ready for it. Up front analysis by armies of consultants and any whiff of waterfall will hit the wall.
• Puny per user costs, no binding, not even contracts to be signed is ideal. Let the growth in number of users take care of income over time. Heck I could live nicely on the coffee budget of a corporate conference or any Wall Street HQ.
• All data must be portable, it's their data, their IP, let them extract it at any time and be free to leave you at any time. 

My two cents (that I have to live by) knowing very well about the solid brick walls called "official IT policy" and such... 

Don't fight anything, make the defence irrelevant, that option is yours!

Comments

[Daeng Bo]

I love your four rules, but I think they can be condensed further -- "Respect and give great value to your customers."

I wish more businesses did that.

[sig]

Daeng,

I agree completely, but then the list could be seen as "how to translate the respect into practical activities" :)