So many things impact on collaboration. It is not always an easy task to keep everything under control but it is critical nevertheless. This week’s selection of recommended reading is a reflection on the diversity of some of the angles from which collaboration can be considered during both the planning and realisation stages.

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

In Collaboration, Actions Speak Louder than Words

Collaboration, collective impact, networks—regardless of the term, there is keen interest among social sector leaders in working across issues and organizations in order to achieve systems-level change. Yet to foster strong collaborations, good intentions are hardly sufficient to guarantee success. Foundation and nonprofit leaders need to change the way they work, sometimes by putting the interests of a collaborative or network ahead of those of their individual organizations…READ ON

How Technology Impacts Collaboration

It’s safe to say that it’s not possible to have collaboration at scale without technology. In fact technology is one of the biggest factors driving any type of collaboration in our organizations today. To explore the role that technology plays in bringing our people and information closer together I spoke with Jeffrey Rodman, the co-founder of Polycom (who is a member of our Future of Work Community). Many of you are familiar with Polycom and, in fact, have used their products…READ ON

Secret’s collapse shows the traditional VC funding model is broken

The monumental failure of anonymous social app Secret and the closing of the company’s doors after a mere 16 months in business has fueled serious discussion among entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. Concerned parties on both sides of the funding table are asking hard questions about what this development means to the future of venture capital funding and whether the well-funded startup’s demise might not in fact indicate that the traditional VC model is broken and badly in need of repair…READ ON

Creating collaboration out of conflict for added value

Effective collaboration is essential for creating value. But paradoxically, effective collaboration has always been a challenge for senior managers — how do you get people in the organisation to work together…READ ON

For remote collaboration, Google Apps still can’t be beat

If you work in tech, you’re probably familiar with a common way to facilitate a team meeting. Everyone is given a pad of yellow Post-it notes and a small sheet of green sticky dots. At the start of the exercise, each person writes down a few possible topics, one per Post-it note, and sticks their Post-it notes on a wall…READ ON

Are You Solving The Right Business Problem? Here Are 5 Ways To Get To Your Question Zero

Forty percent of Samsung’s new smartphone, Galaxy 5S, never left the warehouse. Its all-in-one, Swiss Army Knife approach missed the consumer mark. Motorola’s Moto X, “the only smartphone assembled in the U.S.A,” proved to be similarly unexciting. Arguably, these costly ventures failed because they did not identify the essential challenge their consumers grappled with. The essence of any given problem, according to Harvard Business School professor Herman Leonard, can be reached through question zero. As practiced by design firm Ideo, question zero is a sequence of “whys” used to get designers through a chain of answers until they reach the actual challenge they need to address…READ ON

Marina Abramović: Jay Z ‘completely used me’

Marina Abramović, the Serbian superstar perfomance artist, has spoken about how she was “used” by Jay Z when the rapper shot a music video for his song Picasso Baby in 2013 while the artist performed her work The Artist Is Present, in which she sat across a table from members of the public and held their gaze…READ ON