Building excitement to drive adoption
During the 1950s in the United States, there were rumors that companies used subliminal advertising in movies to influence people (against their normal state) to buy more popcorn and soda. These myths were subsequently debunked.
Over the years, different companies have tried various approaches to influence consumer behavior. Some of these approaches are banned by the US Federal Trade Commission and others are subtle cues meant to elicit a subconscious reaction (e.g., the shape of an arrow between the “E” and “X” on the FedEx logo) — a reaction that will cause you to use or, at the very least, remember the product.
Some companies attempt to influence consumer behavior through advertising — “Buy our products”. Other companies use tactics closer to direct incentives, like offering rewards for using a credit card — this brings in more revenue for the credit card company and reward points can be traded for things like retail gift cards. Honestly, if you think about it, the parallels between what the credit card companies do and what many local arcades do (use the tickets you win from games to pick a gift from inside the glass case) is humorous.
What do these companies realize that we often forget when changing our technology platforms? We need to influence human behavior. Simply having a “great” platform with “the best” features isn’t enough.
Hybrid cloud — you build a great platform; you have great initial adoption; you hit a plateau; stagnation is exacerbated by a global pandemic.
That’s the situation that our protagonist Sam finds herself in. With the results that she committed to for her big boss, she’s deeply concerned that her team won’t hit the target unless drastic actions are taken. What does she do?
a). She has her boss issue a mandate to all the teams that aren’t using the platform to get there within the next six months. This is the best way to get the results and an effective use of top-down management.
b). Bring in an economic consultant to tell her team what they don’t know about building incentives and disincentives to help people move to the platform.
c). Sam knows her stuff. This is a psychological mind-shift as much as a technical platform change. She dusts off what she knows about human behavior and designs an approach to reinforce and motivate people and teams across the organization to join forces with her team in achieving their goal.
If she had the extra budget to bring in an economist for option b, she would. It would validate some of the approaches in option c that she and her team need to take. Since that’s not in the budget, she’ll do it herself — option c.
What are three things that we’ve done to drive adoption?
1. Created a cool code name and an image design for the platform. Starting with a competition to come up with the name and great design help for the image, this branding can be used everywhere to help with communications and build excitement and anticipation, not to mention item #2 below.
2. Ordered swag with the code name and design on it. Stickers, T-shirts, water bottles, pens, and so on — things that will motivate the teams and get excited about the platform.
3. Used swag as a reward for joining the platform. This is for teams that exhibit their architecture patterns and share what they learned with the rest of the organization to help everyone move faster.
Now you may be thinking, “Matt, you’re just bribing teams to use the platform to meet your goal”. Well, no. Bribes are illegal and appropriate incentives are not. What we’re really doing happens in conjunction with our Hybrid, Integrated, and Open approach we discussed before. We still implement the capabilities based on feedback from consumers — providing the features they need to accelerate their business through technology. We still ensure that we’re secure and integrated within our operating environment. We still provide a single experience for the consumers.
What we’re doing now is building excitement in the teams along with the technical capabilities of the platform itself.
Combining the technology, the approach, and the culture shift driven by intentional tactics goes a long way to capture momentum and move faster than you thought was possible.
Matt Lyteson is Vice President of CIO Hybrid Cloud Platforms at IBM based in RTP, North Carolina. The above article is personal and does not necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.
