This week, ROADMENDER’s pick of interesting reading covers a few areas.  Some very good news comes via the first article outlining Australia’s interest in collaborating with India in the field of technology and innovation.  Also significant are a couple of pieces that focus on collaboration and its increasing impact on work practices.  An article explaining how collaboration is providing new solutions for a very competitive cultural sector is very insightful and worth comparing to other sectors where collaboration has been utilised for similar reasons.  Of particular interest is perhaps the last piece which provides links to a set of tools of which, whilst developed with the creative industries sector in mind, could also be used for other, less creative disciplines.

Aussies keen on technology-driven collaboration with India Inc

Australian High Commissioner Patrick Suckling was recently quoted in the Business Standard stating that Australia is “a perfect partner” for India when it comes to cutting edge technology.  The apparent link between innovation and technology seems to have ignited a strong interest in a new form of technology-driven collaboration.  Full article…

Why Creative Collaboration is the Key to Surprising Customers

As far as competition goes, creating memorable consumer experiences in cultural sectors is as hard as it gets.  In an environment saturated with new and exciting content that mixes entertainment, education and high and low brow culture, institutions such as museums have to be more than creative.  It seems that collaboration could be a path to better business and more memorable experiences for visitors. Plus Aziz shares some insights into the way this approach is succeeding.  Full article…

Conversation and Collaboration: The Next Generation of Working Practices

Alastair Mitchell, the founder and CEO of Huddle.com, recently wrote for WIRED that “Forming the backbone of the next generation of working practices are partnerships between enterprise social networking tools and content collaboration services”.  The idea that collaboration is increasingly a major factor to be considered when working practices are being created and nurtured should not be a surprise to anyone.  What remains to be seen is how well human resource specialists, senior management and business leaders understand what is fast becoming a feature that may be a decisive factor in the way workers choose their employers.  Full article…

Microsoft axes its controversial employee-ranking system

In a similar vein as the previous article, here is more reading on the workforce and collaboration; this time from a corporate giant which many may know far less then they assume.  Some have been quick to point out that Microsoft’s new model is a small win for the collaboration culture.  True or not remains to be seen. Tom Warren from The Verge has the details.  Full article…

14 Fantastic Free Tools for Design Collaboration

Collaborative practices seem to occur more naturally in some disciplines than in others. Regardless, learning and sharing across disciplines is an important part of the creative process.  How different disciplines adopt, create, improve or innovate new practices is worth noting regardless of how much it may or may not seem relevant in the immediate term.  I think this set of 14 tools from the ever exciting people of Mashable are probably useful for many others besides designers.  I love the Invision App and Framebench as they could clearly be used in many different ways. Full article…

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