This is a continuation of Part I.
Day 2 in Rio de Janeiro started with me looking outside my hotel window and getting to see Cristo Redentor. I didn't realize the night before I had such a beautiful view of the statue.
Roundtable with Business Partners
Got to IBM at 9:15am (15 minutes late). Luckily, things in Brazil are like in Puerto Rico... meetings start about 30 mins late 
. Maybe it's a Latin America thing. I presented on the Business Value of social software and shared my personal success stories. I also talked about the how IBM is promoting adoption to its employees. I also did a demo of Connections 2.0 and the business partners were blown away by all the new features in 2.0 (which ships this Friday!).
Some business partners had a background in KM. When I talked about the typical adoption rate and how 90% of users are lurkers/readers/consumers, and only about 10% are actual contributors (comments, bookmarks, blogs, etc), they were surprised. I argued, however, that in the KM days if we ever got to more than 1% of active contributors, that was a LOT. They agreed!
One of them was also very experienced with 'change management' and we had a great discussion after the round table concluded. He said that the 12-step adoption plan that I presented was great, and it really applied to any organizational change. He also commented that he believes integration is key to adoption. The ability to use social software from anywhere is a must because people naturally contribute/collaborate in different ways. He, for example, blogs by using a voice recorder and then transcribing his thoughts into a blog! Very interesting approach, I thought!
Here's the feedback that I got from one of the BP's after the session was done:
O bate papo sobre Connections foi muito produtivo. Termos alguém com conhecimento para tirar nossas dúvidas comerciais e técnicas no formato apresentado realmente é muito bom. Ainda mais nos novos produtos da Lotus os quais ainda não possuímos expertise.
Recomendo repetir esta experiência sempre que possível.