"You can't force collaboration unless you have a culture that aspires to it," said Dan Pontefract, head of learning and collaboration at Canadian telecom Telus, during a panel discussion. "If you just dump a bunch of tools on people, it's not going to work. You might get that 9 or 10 percent [of people engaged], but the other 90 percent is what you want."

For Colliers International, a real estate services company with 12,000 employees and operations in 62 countries, the key seemed to be finding a tool that truly fit the company's mold.

"Real estate is nothing if not a people business," said Rob Gubas, vice president of global marketing, during another session on Wednesday. Colliers built what amounts to "LinkedIn for real estate," an employee profile network that connects workers by category, geographic location and other areas.

"We have a specific goal of more internally driven business referrals," Gubas said. "The only way we can do that is to help people find others who can help them." For example, if Gubas needed someone who could translate marketing copy into Mandarin, the profile system could help him find that person fast, he said.

Colliers has an employee adoption rate for the profiles of more than 80 percent, and expects 100 percent adoption later this year, according to Gubas.