One question that seems to come up as often as “How much does Central Desktop cost?” is “How do I get my coworkers to use Central Desktop?”.
There are many answers to this question that we will share with you in upcoming blog posts. The first thing that we always recommend is to create a “Sandbox Workspace”. This is a workspace that is purely dedicated to pushing buttons, adding content, deleting content and all around experimentation with the Central Desktop platform. This is a workspace that is not dedicated to a project, a department or any real work.
In other words – it is a safe place.
As you know there are many different kinds of people when it comes to using software platforms. You have the kind of person that will just dig in and find the software they are using to be completely intuitive. Sometimes these people may be younger, they have grown up with the Internet, they might be programmers or they may just be daredevils.
There are also people that require training materials in order to get their grounding. This may be delivered through written instructions or manuals, training videos or hands on instruction. Once equipped with these materials they dive right in and get to work.
Another type of user is one that is proficient in the usual office place platforms like Outlook, Excel and Word yet when they are presented with a new platform it may feel as if you are walking into the GREAT UNKNOWN. And this is OK, totally natural and very commonplace.
We have found that all three of these users tend to exist within everyone of my clients organizations. And as we and many of our clients know –User Adoption is the key to making a collaborative software platform work. In our opinion it is the most important factor above everything else.
Because of this, it is very important to make sure everyone is enabled for success when you are rolling out your workspaces and projects.
This is where the “Sandbox Workspace” comes in. Again, because of the unknown territory that is now being explored by our third type of user we need to offer an environment that allows them to perform actions such as adding a task, editing a wiki page or checking out and checking in of a document without the fear of affecting any real work or jobs that need to be done.
No one wants to accidentally do the wrong thing for fear of embarrassment, punishment or throwing a monkey wrench into the project that needs to be completed yesterday. Now, as the regular user of Central Desktop knows – there are many safeguards put in place to make sure this doesn’t happen and that you can almost always go back and undo what you may have done. The new user however, may just say “Screw this! I don’t understand this! I am outta here!”.
You do not want this to happen.
So, let’s create that safe place. The Sandbox Workspace. The place where you can just try things out, get familiar with the platform and enable all of your users to be as confident with Central Desktop as they are with sending an email.
Here is how we will create this workspace using Central Desktop. Follow this path: Login > My Workspaces > Create New Workspace > Choose the “A La Carte” workspace tempalte > Check ALL of the boxes > Name your Workspace “Sandbox” > Create. (This will create an environment with all of the functionality of the platform)
Now add your members, add some test documents/tasks/milestones etc. Edit the Wiki Homepage with information about the Sandbox Workspace and include information such as “Be Sure to Use the Help Link” for video and written instructions. Encourage people to just have fun, experiment and play with the functionality in a safe zone. Want to see if something works? Try it in the Sandbox! Want to see if you know how to create Milestones or Tasks correctly? Try it in the Sandbox? Wondering what all of those Application Blocks do? Try it in the sandbox.
I have found that taking this approach allows you to enable all of your users (the Pros, the Regulars and the Newbies) to really experience the full power of Central Desktop.
Let me know how it works and if you want any further tips on the Sandbox Workspace.
