From one of my previous posts, I made reference to how odd it is that we spend over 90% of our time talking about something that will only have a 10% impact on your implementation; namely, tool selection. Take wikis for example, you have several choices between collaborative products like Sharepoint, focused products like Social Text, and open source products like XWiki. So in the words of Charlie Daniels:

Boy let me tell you what: I bet you didn't know it, but I'm a fiddle player too. And if you'd care to take a dare, I'll make a bet with you. Now you play a pretty good fiddle, boy, but give the devil his due: I bet a fiddle of gold against your soul, 'cos I think I'm better than you.

Ok, I’ll let you pick any wiki product on the market today within any enterprise of your choosing. I’ll let you bring in as many developers, architects, or consultants that you need and I’ll give you as much time as you need to add as many features and functionality that you see fit. You can have the highest performing infrastructure and as much storage as you need. I’ll even let you pre-load all of your documentation, meeting minutes, and terms your group can create. Again, you can have as much time as you need to complete these tasks.

For me and my group, I’ll take a product that delivers 60-70% of those features and functionality. You can put me on an infrastructure that’s “good enough”; let’s at least be fair about it. The only thing you can’t do is perform any client-support or marketing. This would only be fair since most IT departments will focus 90% of their time on the tool and feature inventory.

Here is the bet, I’ll bet you I will catch you in six months, pass you in nine and double you in 12. Before 24 months, you will lose 80% of your customer base and become insignificant within the enterprise. Why is this wager a safe bet? Because we, as IT professionals, refuse to believe that the soft stuff means anything. Left alone, without influence, IT professionals would never bring in a usability or HCI professional, never engage an information architect, and certainly never think of the customer service side of collaboration. You see, collaboration and social software is about creating relationships not about functionality.