This is the first in a series of posts about the "rules" of deploying collaborative technology in an organizational context.

Today, many public leaders see blogs, wikis, and other collaborative platforms, and feel immense pressure to do...something. But as we like to say around here, there's nothing magical about collaboration that changes human nature, and it is still fundamentally true that people only show up when you give them a reason. Making the decision to offer folks a chance to interact has the potential to add a lot more value than a one-way exchange, but it also means that the time and effort required to participate is greater. Simply deploying collaborative technologies doesn't mean that people will use them. In other words, if you build it...well, they still may not come.

Take blogs, for example. Blogs are one of the easiest solutions to implement, but one of the hardest to implement correctly. It's easy to overlook the fact that the "Comments" section at the bottom of each post isn't just a fun place for users to drop feedback; it's a commitment to responsiveness. Leaders looking to implement a blog have to think clearly about the value exchange: Why am I asking people to spend time and effort essentially giving me their best ideas for free? What do they get out of it in return?

A great example of a blog that has answered this question successfully is the Transportation Security Administration's blog, Evolution of Security. TSA Administrator (and friend of the Collaboration Project) Kip Hawley identified early on that a blog could be a powerful tool to gain public buy-in for an agency whose mission isn't always well-understood. Rather than just start a site and begin churning out blog posts, though, TSA thought carefully about what it would take to truly realize a value exchange with potential users. How, exactly, did they do it?

• First, they thought clearly about who would write the blog. The public thinks of TSA as a single, monolithic entity, but in reality there are over 43,000 TSOs and managers who are on the front lines of airport security, dealing directly with travelers every day. So, TSA made the decision to have some of these folks actually write the thing! The result is a blog that speaks to the problems and concerns of actual travelers, rather than simply talking inside-baseball (Federal Edition!) or sternly lecturing citizens about the dangers of air travel. It's a site with a mission to actually deliver better service to customers, which is a great value exchange and a truly refereshing thing to see in the federal community.
  
  
• From this decision naturally flowed the idea of letting bloggers write in their actual voices. Possibly taking a page from Us Magazine, TSA decided to let their bloggers show that they're just like us! Check out this line from a recent post on shoe removal:

  The TSA is well aware that the removal of shoes is not our most popular policy. In fact, it probably ranks up there with root canals and doing your taxes.
  
  What you've seen up until now has been our officers enforcing an unpopular policy that is based on the unfortunate truth that intelligence tells us that terrorists are still very interested in hiding items in their shoes.

  The tone is breezy, informal, and damned funny, and it instantly sets readers at ease and makes them comfortable engaging in a two-way dialogue. This may seem like a small issue, but if readers don't see a voice they feel they could have a conversation with...they won't.
  
  
• Finally, and perhaps most importantly, TSA's bloggers actually act on, and react to, the feedback they get from users. For example, in March 2008, TSA blogger 'Bob' was browsing Google News Alerts when he noticed a story making major waves in the blogosphere: traveler Michael Nygard had recently missed his flight because airport security had pulled him aside to take a closer look at his new MacBook Air laptop. While the passenger himself had not criticized TSA, his story set off a storm of complaints among bloggers who used the event to highlight the agency's supposed ineffectiveness.
  
  Using Evolution of Security as his platform, Bob immediately acknowledged the incident and promised to find out for his readers why it had happened. A week later Bob issued a follow-up post in which he included a video clip of an X-ray test that he had personally conducted with the MacBook Air. While this response did not immediately silence all of the critics, the majorityof blog comments were very supportive of the agency's actions – and demonstrated that spending time on the blog could actually pay off big-time for TSA and its traveling customers.

The bottom line is that there are three key success factors that make a collaborative platform or tool an attractive proposition to potential users, and all of them are the result of carefully considering the "social" aspect of the Social Web. Successful platforms seek to solve a clear problem, target a specific audience, and they provide a real value exchange for the user's effort. Lacking any of these three is usually the difference between experimentation with "cool" technology, and collaboration that truly adds value. What it all comes down to is that if users are not driven to participate by making the value of their efforts clear, then facilitating a productive discussion becomes harder than getting through an airport with your shoes on!