<p>A successful transition to a social business hinges on employee adoption. Plan carefully for these seven ways people perceive change.</p><p>I've discussed the theory of "Diffusion of Innovators," developed by scholar Everett Rogers, which identified the five types of adopters within an organization: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. But the theory also includes a list of innovation characteristics that influence whether a given person will adopt something new. By understanding these, you can lubricate the adoption of social business within your company.</p><p>These five characteristics include relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability. Two additional factors were later added by J. David Johnson (a student of Rogers and a professor of mine): adaptability and riskiness. Here's how each of them affect social business adoption, plus examples from my own experience.</p><p>Relative Advantage is the degree to which an innovation is perceived as being better than the idea it supersedes. We try to continually remind employees about the benefits of adoption. These benefits could be improvements in existing capabilities -- such as more efficient communication with less email -- or new capabilities such as Enterprise Q&amp;A. Benefits can occur at all three levels -- individual, group, and organizational -- so try to illustrate benefits across the spectrum.</p><p><a href="http://www.informationweek.com/software/social/7-ways-to-drive-social-business-buy-in/d/d-id/898956">Keep reading...</a></p>