I appreciate the honest tone and message of this post. There has been a lot of unvalidated hype on Enterprise 2.0 applications and its no wonder "the business" in these economic times is trying desperately to understand the true business value. The bright spot in this scenario is that vendors and businesses alike will be motivated to get beyond the hype and demonstrate true value and ROI - most likely by having to focus on specific business problems that need help. Thanks for the post, keep them coming.

Dear business - you ask lots of good questions.

* How can I integrate these tools within my environment and address my imperatives?
This depends, of course, on what you've got. My best advice is the oil spot method. Start with a specific objective - what's your newest strategic business issue or your most irksome communication problem? Define the goal, then bring the people and technology in within that context. See what worked and what didn't and go forward appropriately. Talk to someone objective to help, if needs be.

* What do I need to do for my people? Training? Education? Transformation?
Collaboration is much more about culture than about technology. Collaborative teams have shared goals, mutual respect, trust, and a dedication to continual improvement. Lead your people there.

* What services can be added to the tools to serve my business needs?
The world is your oyster. define your goals, talk to smart (or at least well informed people) and you shall find what you seek.
* What solutions can you bring to table to have an immediate impact to my productivity?
Communication is pretty basic. the ability to bring people together to share what they know is pretty helpful. STart with yammer, if you doubt me. Wait till you have a good number of people there, then let people start asking questions. They get answers immediately instead of days emails and phone calls later. Does that help?

* How do I convince my business managers to replace their current processes with you?

Lead by example. Don't replace things that work. Evolve them to be better. This is a hearts and minds thing - you can't force collaboration or participation.
* How can I measure success and how will I know that I am heading down the right path?
1. When adoption starts to go up fast, when people can start telling you about how they've benefited, when people start using it for more than it initial purpose.
Know your goals, measure against them. Not by irrelevant statistics.
* What patterns, templates, and success stories do you have to show me?
Cisco, US Army,Director of National Intelligence, Zappos, many, many more. Follow Peter Kim's blog for great examples and dry-eyed analysis.

Great post - same issues come up again - the integration (plumbing) and the education of end users, especially those that are not enthusiastic about IT.

Excellent post. One thing I would add: make sure to track what it really costs you to do something.

Great post and good questions.

I would pose that while vendors should focus on providing as much practical information to the table, there has to be some grounding of reality in the nature of the enterprise to change.

There will always be segments of a business that are highly resistant to change and slow to adopt, no matter how good a justification nor how many practical examples given. A classic case would be the use of Twitter by AT&T vs. other companies. It is being used in a rudimentary way, in spite of the fact that from other examples such as Dell and Comcast there are more ways to use that social media. Seeking assistance is one thing; asking for someone to hold one's hand constantly to do something is quite another.

So again while there is room for improvement for vendors/solution providers, there is a significant amount of internal company commitment that needs to be considered independent yet complimentary of anything these vendors provide.