I am fond of telling people I work with “before you get to the creative part, get the boring bits right”. In my view, this applies equally to collaboration. It’s tempting to jump into the fun part of ‘working together’ where we bounce ideas, debate issues, analyse etc. But in reality, like any other discipline, collaboration only works well when we maintain the process over a long period of time. This means dealing with things even when people lose interest (some never get into it in the first place), or when technological glitches frustrate the process. Sometimes it can be mixture of people factors, technological issues, resources and, most disappointingly, lukewarm strategies, that collectively set the whole thing up for an experience nobody dares to propose again. Remember this, so many marketing campaigns fail to sell the product for a whole range of reasons. But that doesn’t stop businesses from trying again. Product/service marketing is a simple necessity and thus gets better as businesses learn to do it better. This same attitude is important for collaboration. This week’s selection of articles tackle some of those ‘boring bits’. Enjoy!

Sincere thanks to those who have suggested articles for this edition of Roadmender Recommends.

The Future Is Now: Online Collaboration In The Virtual Workplace

A question like “what is the future of collaborative business?” is practically redundant since technology has already brought this vital feature into the business world. As my high school journalism teacher always said, the most important things to ask are who, what, when, where, why and how…READ ON

Collaboration can help fix relationship with lazy co-workers

I am having a serious problem with some lazy co-workers. As the sales manager for a conference center, I book events for customers, then send the requirements to our two event planners. Their job is to handle all of the details, including room setup, catering and audio-visual needs…READ ON

Is Your Company Ready For Email Collaboration?

Are mobile and email holding us back? I’m beginning to think so. In the department of What Happens Next In The World of Work, they’re what has to happen: We need to have seriously better ways of communicating both via mobile and via email. Both need to catch up to the way we want to work, which is more collaborative, interactive, agile, and fast…READ ON

On Acting Collaboratively

I have been reminded over the past couple of months about the behaviors or acts of collaboration – what does it look like when someone acts collaboratively? Let’s take the word ACTS and make it mean something…READ ON

Female Co-Working Spaces Encourage Community And Collaboration

Felena Hanson at the Hera Hub location in Sorrento Valley, San Diego

Some successful women credit an all-girls education with giving them the confidence to shoot for any goal. Can female work spaces offer professional women the same advantage? After eight years of running a marketing business out of her home, the need for a professional networking space drove Felena Hanson to create Hera Hub in 2011, a shared workspace for female entrepreneurs named for the Greek goddess of women…

Clarizen Wants to Make You More of a Team Player

Team players are in demand. According to a recent survey of 500 professionals, 87 percent work on distributed or hybrid teams. And nearly 40 percent of those spend at least 65 percent of their workdays on these teams. There’s no shortage of collaboration tools. But many companies are still struggling to find the optimal technology. Clarizen is attempting to help with an update to its workplace collaboration software. Along with enhanced integration with Box, the update should drive efficiency, participation and motivation, the company claims…

…and now for something completely different…

Philosophers Drinking Coffee: The Excessive Habits of Kant, Voltaire & Kierkegaard

Voltaire

I think I speak for many of us when I say that coffee fuels our greatest intellectual efforts. And even as we get the jitters and leave brown rings on our desks, we can take comfort in the fact that so it also went with some of the most notable philosophers in the history of the discipline. As far back as the 18th century, no less a writer, thinker, and agitator than François-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire, “reportedly consumed somewhere between 40 and 50 cups of joe a day, apparently of a chocolate-coffee mixture. He lived into his eighties, though his doctor warned him that his beloved coffee would kill him.”…READ ON