In large and small scale businesses there is a divide — one that separates the business from the more technical folk. In today’s marketplace, it is critical that these two forces meet somewhere in the middle, sharing an understanding of commonplace technical terms, techniques and trends. It’s scary when a business lead is driving an initative, yet doesn’t truly grasp the high-level technical concepts of the work; or when the business side sees something “cool” and says, “why can’t we have that on our site?” Sound familiar?
To help alleviate this, I have been pondering methods to help engage the everyday business employee in all the things that we find wonderful, amazing or problematic in our “world”. As designers, developers, IAs and PMs, we all see things we think are beneficial to our industry, and to our business. But how do we go about sharing those concepts with the masses, all with varying degrees of knowledge?
I have been running a tool ala del.icio.us, where a user can “tag” stories of interest or relevance from a handy Firefox toolbar icon. These “tagged” entries are compiled into RSS for internal consumption by anyone who wants to subscribe. They also appear as posts in our group’s internal Wordpress blog. It started out with some fanfare among the business-minded, but has slowed, with just our immediate group now adding entries (we’re all the technical “implementers” so we’re really into it). I’m considering an all-out internal marketing blitz to promote this simple tool, but am looking for additional engagement ideas.
The question is, how do you make people care?