Who Should be Your Chief Collaboration Officer?

The idea of collaboration being a fully-fledged discipline, not unlike HR, Marketing, ICT, etc., is still not clear to most business leaders and managers.  Instead, as I have pointed out numerous times on ROADMENDER, the assumption is that every manager or leader should simply know that stuff.  Be that as it may, collaboration in the 21st century, an era when business is dealing with ever more complexity, is something that requires far more attention.  Morten T. Hansen and Scott Tapp return to the topic of collaboration in this piece that makes a few suggestions that can go a long way towards a change of attitude.  Both well regarded and respected specialists in the areas of collaboration came to my attention years ago; specifically Morten T Hansen who has lucidly spoken about the collaboration premium.  READ ON…

8 Tips For Collaborative Leadership

In light of the above argument, for those in a leadership role this straight to the point Forbes article by Carol Kinsey Goman is as good a start as one would hope for.  While simple things such as the importance of building vision and having a collaborative strategy that is built on the strengths of people may sound logical, a combination of all these tips make a pretty solid base for collaborative leadership. READ ON…

Pre-competitive collaboration could be key to solving water risks in Kenya

No matter how often we hear that collaboration is good for competition rather than being something that weakens it, the message needs to be repeated.  There are many reasons for collaboration, as is currently being evidenced by a growing number of businesses, governments and communities globally; particularly when dealing with complex problems such as the supply of clean water.  In this great piece by Flemmich Webb published in The Guardian we can see how a range of partners worked together to solve a chronic problem in Nairobi.  READ ON…

Why True Collaboration is Rare

Collaboration is not meant to be easy, nor is it meant to be a cure all solution.  When pursued with strategic discipline and skill it does work better than most alternatives, however, it is not easy and this analysis by Lynn Serafinn provides further insight into the issues every collaboration practitioner needs to know.  READ ON…

The Power of Unintentional Collaboration

This is an interesting piece.  I have never heard a question that A/Prof Gerald C. Kane was unable, or even more so, needed to think about how to answer.  As A/Prof Kane explains, even a simple question such as What is the difference between communication and collaboration?, can lead to discovery or an insight of a kind.  In this case A/Prof Kane suggests that social media ‘blurs the line separating communication and collaboration’. This piece may be particularly important to those organisations that rely heavily on a social media strategy and are yet to develop a strategy for collaboration.  READ ON…

The Enterprise Collaboration Tipping Point

Collaborative practice is constantly evolving and we need to understand that the very meaning of collaboration is defined in a large part by its context.  This, in part, seems to be the message that Oscar Berg maintains in this CMS Wire piece.  The author makes a very compelling point in terms of the emergence, and increased traction, of the digital workplace.  The workforce which is also more distributed and no longer can rely on internal collaboration tools but are inevitably dependent on external factors.  Virtual collaboration may, as the author points out, be a new norm.  READ ON…

Knowledge Creation and Social Collaboration in the Digital Workplace

If the above piece was not enough, here is another in depth article by marketing executive Marc Jadoul who provides a range of angles that explore how social collaboration in digital workplaces is in fact the way to create knowledge.  Marc opens the article with a quote by Andrew Carnegie (1919) “The only irreplaceable capital an organization possesses is the knowledge and ability of its people.  The productivity of that capital depends on how effectively people share their competence with those who can use it.” This insight almost a century ago is now more relevant than ever.  READ ON…

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