Nationwide has been successful because it has managed its adoption of collaboration tools as part of a broader cultural change program. Chris Plescia, leader of marketing, collaboration and corporate Internet solutions, told me that the first step for leaders is a little bit of a leap: “We’ve made it okay to try something new. A couple years ago, it took me about five minutes to post my first question. I was worried I might make a mistake, so I spell-checked it several times before I sent it out. When people responded I realized I needed to quickly interact with them and eventually became comfortable with potential spelling errors. Another challenge was knowing that these conversations are public. So we spent time up front to define policies for compliance and governance.”