This week’s selection of recommended reading suggests that collaboration can help outliers to compete with giants; that various industries can project major business growth of both jobs and income; that some industries can better deal with future challenges; and that philanthropy may be set for major changes.  Additionally, as collaboration becomes recognised as a discipline that businesses, governments and the community sector can turn to for solutions, innovation also produces better ways of collaborating.

Shelter From The Storm: Why Brainswarming Is The Future Of Collaboration

Brainstorming has always been part of any kind of collaboration.  In fact, for a long time it has been a mainstay of any attempt that might lead to joint action. For better or worse, as collaboration becomes a practice that takes up more of our daily routine, we see new models, approaches and strategies invented by groups of collaboration practitioners.  In this piece by Kevin Maney from FastCompany, we can learn how to “brainswarm” and improve our collaboration by avoiding the common shortfalls of brainstorming. This is not a call to abandon brainstorming, but rather an invitation to innovate in collaboration.  Full article…

How China’s entrepreneurs are shaking up philanthropy

We know a lot about China’s economic rise over the past few decades. Globally, we have become far more connected to China, and it is no surprise then that its economy and politics have become something that the business community, as well as consumers, have taken a keen interest in for a variety of reasons.  Interestingly though, there are many areas that we may have not paid enough attention to when it comes to the raft of changes occurring in China.  One of those is the changing paradigm of the philanthropic arena. As Aron Cramer explains in this piece published on the World Economic Forum blog, China’s entrepreneurs are changing philanthropy, and businesses, communities, governments and the general public alike should pay attention. While some of those changes are in essence practices well established in Australia and many other western countries, there are also new ways in how philanthropy is evolving in the second largest economy in the world.  Full article…

Collaboration key to identifying logistics opportunities

Calling on more collaboration, or in fact any collaboration, as a strategy for business growth has now become part of an expected set of solutions that business and public leaders should not think twice about. However, it is never too much of an effort to find out what prompts other businesses, regardless of the industry or a part of the world they are in, to collaborate or concentrate on development of a path for collaboration. In this piece by Elijah Brumback, collaboration has been identified as an all but unavoidable solution to business growth and sustainability. This is even more striking when we take into account that a report referred to in the article estimates business opportunity in the order of 60,000 new jobs and $US10billion of revenue.   Full article…

Collaboration Could Deliver 30% Savings in Food Waste Processing Across Hospitality Sector

This article is an analysis of a recent report in UK that identifies collaboration as a way forward in an industry that, according to insiders, is in a situation where cost management is critical because of tight business margins. Is this another global example of how collaboration is a feasible strategy for business sectors to turn to when faced with stark challenges?  I feel this could be an indication of an intensified level of activity which would be irresponsible for any sector to ignore.  Full article…

Nike CEO Hints At Collaborative Future For FuelBand

“There’s only so much you can do on your own”, are the words of Mark Parker, CEO of Nike, who recently spoke about collaboration as a way forward for Nike’s new product. Austin Carr from Fast Company explores whether Nike could actually compete with the likes of Google, Samsung and Apple in the rise of wearable computing products that are set to change our lives. I find it interesting that Nike, which is referred to as an outlier in this instance, could potentially become a serious competitor because it understands the power of collaboration more than others.  Full Article…

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