No doubt the biggest collaboration news this week was the ending of one of the longest corporate collaborations between LEGO and Shell. I for one am not too surprised given the range of factors involved. It seems the sentiment of the collaboration has not kept up with societal trends. The lesson for all collaborators out there is simple; collaborations do work and pay great results but at the same time they should be treated with the utmost strategic respect. Obviously there are many other details that are going to stay in boardrooms for years to come, so more detailed analysis is difficult at the moment. Nevertheless, that is extra incentive to learn more about collaborative strategy and make collaboration work for your enterprise. This week’s selection is compiled with that intent.

How to Set Productive Collaboration into Action

Collaboration is essential for long-term innovation. Working together and sharing information enables employees to draw on expertise from the entire organization, avoid costly mistakes, and ultimately achieve a collective goal. Yet many of today’s large companies still operate as siloed structures. While cubicle farms give a sense of efficiency and hierarchy, they prevent cross-pollination and dialogue across the enterprise. By design, silos prevent information from flowing outward; they discourage people from seeking out new ways to collaborate and build better ideas…

Lego ends Shell collaboration after Greenpeace protest video goes viral

Toymaker ends £68 m deal after coming under pressure from environment group which accused it of “letting children down”

Danish toymaker Lego has announced it won’t renew its long-standing contract with Shell following a viral Greenpeace campaign. The group launched an online petition calling on the group to end the partnership, followed by a YouTube video in July this year, depicting happy Lego characters and Arctic animals in their natural habitat. However, the serenity of the scene is disrupted after a Shell platform begins drilling with a vast amount of oil covering the ocean until the animals disappear completely while a Lego character portraying a Shell executive smokes a cigar…READ ON

Cross-sector collaboration: the key to unlocking youth potential

Millions of young people worldwide demand better education and job opportunities. They are disenfranchised by a lack of prospects and frustrated by a seemingly uncaring system. How can we provide a comprehensive solution to meet this urgent demand? The answer lies in cross-sector collaboration…READ ON

Will Video Kill the Telephone Star for Solo and Small Firm Collaboration?

Video Killed the Radio Star, the first video played on MTV when the channel launched in 1981, spoke of the rise of video and decline of audio. Thirty-three years later, thanks to technology, it’s more practical than ever before for lawyers to “meet” with their colleagues via videoconference or video chat. Indeed, video technology has come so far that legal futurist Richard Susskind predicted in his Clio Cloud Conference keynote that, in the not-too-distant future, clients will be meeting with lawyers via high-definition, immersive tools along the lines of Cisco’s TelePresence. But do today’s lawyers want to leave the telephone behind when it comes to remote collaboration…READ ON

Collaboration Exasperation

The collaborations technologies most prominent in enterprise businesses still places unreasonable burdens upon the users. [Editor’s Note: This podcast was produced by Guy Clinch for No Jitter. Below the audio player is the transcript of the podcast so visitors can read along.]. Really; is this the best we can do? Are we really happy with the collaboration tools we have today? How much of our productive weeks are lost at the beginning and during the time we spend in collaborating online? I’m sorry to be such a curmudgeon, but how much time must we continue to lose due to the tools and our incapacity to execute their use well…READ ON

Tech Cocktail Celebrate: We Came, We Collided, We Collaborated

Inside the funky space, Jenn Lim from Delivering Happiness gets prepared for her Fireside Chat and stays productive.

Tech Cocktail Celebrate Conference went down in Downtown Las Vegas earlier this week, and the beautiful, aptly-named Inspire Theatre played host to the bulk of the events. Here, attendees found collaborative panel discussions on stage in the main theater offered by speakers from startup accelerators, civic entrepreneurship programs, coworking spaces, corporations, and other roles that have been created around the country to help grow communities led by entrepreneurs. Throughout the venue, attendees found spaces to meet, mentor, network, and form connections with others who are starting or running their own business, or stimulating innovation with funding, partnerships, and mentorships…READ ON

Collaboration as a Tool for Advancement

During the Sustainable Packaging Coalition’s recent event, SPC Advance, I couldn’t help but notice the underlying theme of collaboration among attendees and their respective organizations. Discussions and sessions made it clear that collaboration is necessary and frequent among organizations practicing sustainability regardless of their role in the supply chain. The Value of Forest Certification working group elaborated on the need for big-name brand owners to have an affiliation with forest-friendly NGOs in order to push their business forward. Partnerships with forest certification systems assist brands in building the trust of their consumers and the rest of the supply chain, especially at times when the environmental ethics of large corporate practices are put into question…READ ON

Broader data sharing for connected transportation will require widespread collaboration

Ford envisions plenty of communication between cars and a wide range of transportation management systems.

As populations in sprawling urban areas rise, commuting will become a bigger challenge. Connected cars are likely to leverage connectivity to help commuters reach destinations using different modes of transportation, further driving development teams to collaborate more extensively within their companies and with outsiders from many fields…READ ON

…and now for something completely different…

Why Daydreaming is Critical to Effective Learning

Brynja Eldon/Flickr

There’s no doubt there are more distractions bombarding students than there were 50 years ago. Most kids have cellphones, use social media, play games, watch TV and are generally more “plugged in” than ever before. This cultural shift means that in addition to helping students gain the transferable skills and knowledge they’ll need later in life, teachers may have to start helping them tune out the constant buzz in order to get their message across. It’s never too early to learn smart strategies to focus in on priorities and tune out what’s not immediately necessary…READ ON