Did you know that there is a law that prohibits collaboration? Specifically, in the USA there is a law governing state elections that prohibits collaboration between candidates and independent groups. Also, a recent Deloitte report indicates that collaboration already adds $A46 billion to the Australian economy. People now collaborate even when they meditate. And we have smart energy collaboration companies who are even willing to hurt their own bottom line in the interests of long term benefits for customers. Even blogging is changing and increasingly becoming a collaborative effort.

These are some of the nuggets we have found for our readers. The full stories follow. Here’s the chance to learn more about the creative ways collaboration is deployed and get ready for that Monday morning staff meeting. Homework has never been so easy. Enjoy!

Note: Sincere thanks to those who have suggested some of the following articles as suitable for this section.

The modern workforce: the future of corporate collaboration

IT executives work hard to provide the modern workforce collaboration and communication tools that best align with corporate objectives. Gigaom Research and Adobe analyzed global survey results to help tech decision makers harness the new office culture…READ ON

Collective Impact

Large-scale social change requires broad cross-sector coordination, yet the social sector remains focused on the isolated intervention of individual organizations. The scale and complexity of the U.S. public education system has thwarted attempted reforms for decades. Major funders, such as the Annenberg Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Pew Charitable Trusts have abandoned many of their efforts in frustration after acknowledging their lack of progress. Once the global leader—after World War II the United States had the highest high school graduation rate in the world—the country now ranks 18th among the top 24 industrialized nations, with more than 1 million secondary school students dropping out every year. The heroic efforts of countless teachers, administrators, and nonprofits, together with billions of dollars in charitable contributions, may have led to important improvements in individual schools and classrooms, yet system-wide progress has seemed virtually unobtainable…READ ON

Is Collaborative Storytelling the Next Generation of Blogging?

The evolution of blogging from text-based content to a visually-rich medium marks a transformation in the thought process of society. Blogging trends over the years demonstrate a shift in the way that people respond to viral marketing strategies. And in today’s mobile world, people are more attracted to pictures and visual graphics than anything else…READ ON

Daily Meditation: Collaborate

We all need help maintaining our personal spiritual practice. We hope that these daily meditations, prayers and mindful awareness exercises can be part of bringing spirituality alive in your life. Today’s meditation features a song by Catrin Finch and Seckou Keita, two musicians from different parts of the world. In addition to the beauty of the music, we are inspired by the collaboration between these two artists, each of whom plays a different type of harp from his or her own musical tradition…READ ON

The Next Phase of Collaboration: Getting the Job Done

While many companies struggle to adopt social business practices, others have found ways to generate real business results through collaboration. The difference often comes down to a structured approach to social business that was explored yesterday in a CMSWire webinar featuring Jim Lundy, CEO and lead analyst for Aragon Research, Matt Wenger, CEO of ThinkTank and Kim Glover, manager of knowledge management for FMC Technologies. The session was sponsored by ThinkTank…READ ON

A Popular Energy Collaboration

It’s not often that a company willingly hurts its own bottom line to help their customers save money. But that’s the case with the oil, propane and biofuel delivery companies Lamprey Energy and Simply Green Biofuels. With winter fast approaching, North Hampton-based Lamprey Energy and Simply Green have collaborated with Yankee Thermal Imaging on an energy audit program to help their customers create far more energy efficient homes and save on heating oil and biofuel costs this winter and beyond…READ ON

The six enemies of collaboration beyond shoddy technology and workplace design

Photo: Karl Hilzinger

Collaboration is the corporate equivalent of exercise: we all know we should do more of it but reality often falls short of the ideal. A report by Deloitte on behalf of Google attempts to quantify the benefits, estimating that collaboration already adds a net $46 billion to the Australian economy, with potential to grow this to about $56 billion. There is room for improvement, with 30 per cent of those surveyed saying they would like an increase in collaboration in their own organisations…READ ON

Judge extends hold on law barring campaign collaboration

U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa Wednesday extends the hold on a state election law prohibiting collaboration between candidates and independent groups — an issue at the heart of a secret probe into Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign. The order extends the temporary restraining order through Nov. 12 — the week after the Nov. 4 election — and effectively allows candidates to work closely with outside groups as long as those groups don’t explicitly tell people how to vote. That means the independent groups could coordinate with a campaign and still run ads praising or attacking the candidates in that race…READ ON

Set the Context That Fosters Conviviality, Connection and Collaboration

Want to become a sought-after, connective leader? Then become the glue that bonds others together around their most talented sides. Consider this approach. In experiments, psychologist David Trafimow and colleagues asked half of the study participants to think about how they were different from their friends and family and asked the other half to consider how they were similar to their loved ones. They then asked participants to describe themselves. Those who were asked to think of similarities gave descriptions that included more relationships and roles than those who had thought about their differences. That spurred them to feel closer to each other…READ ON

…and now for something completely different…

New Harvard Research Reveals A Fun Way To Be More

We all want to be more successful. But everything you read probably sounds like a lot of work. Isn’t there a scientifically proven method that’s a little more… fun? There is. Shawn Achor is the bestselling author of The Happiness Advantage and for years at Harvard he studied exactly that: happiness. He gave an extremely popular (and, in my opinion, the all-time funniest) TED talk…READ ON