One thing that I find truly great is the fact that we can collaborate globally. Distance collaboration is not as much reliant on infrastructure, as it is on strong social and cultural attitudes. At this point it still looks like people are far more likely to work with those whose geotag is in the neighbourhood. This too is slowly dissolving as people realise that with some planning, a group of people with the right approach to collaboration can achieve anything. One of the articles selected for this week’s recommended readings by Heidi K. Gardner and Mark Mortensen, and published in Harvard Business Review, gets into that space with more detail exploring how large teams can collaborate globally.

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

Collaboration seals the perfect package

Iteration, and plenty of it, is crucially important to the success of a new packaging launch, according to the man who is responsible for all packaging formats for Campbell Co. of Canada. Continually repeating the process, or steps, aimed at creating a new package creates new ideas and solves problems along the way, said Matt Dingee, senor packaging engineer for Campbell. His company might be best known for soups…READ ON

Collaborative Sales: How To Foster A Culture Of Sharing & Collaboration

I think of collaboration as a byproduct of culture, and culture is really about people, so your people are the essential ingredient building up that culture. So hiring the right people is the foundation for building a collaborative culture. It’s important to get the right people on your team to grow your business, and especially in a small or starting business, you need team players. Look for individuals who have demonstrated being part of a team in their past career or school experience…READ ON

Collaborating Well in Large Global Teams

Professional service firms seeking to help companies navigate the demands of globalization face a tough challenge because advisers with the specialized expertise needed to address sophisticated issues are most often distributed throughout the firm and around the globe. This makes collaboration difficult…READ ON

Realizing Collaboration’s Potential

For the last 20 years, IT has offered new methods of collaboration and communication. Though the results have not been stellar, investment in collaboration remains high. Today we see knowledge workers provisioning their own tools. The truth is that with the proliferation of workplace collaboration tools like instant messaging, internal social networks, document collaboration…READ ON

3 collaboration tools vying to knock Microsoft out of the enterprise

Slack, Jive, and Symphony is not the name of a new jazz band. They are startups hoping to replace Microsoft’s set of established and new communication tools: Exchange, SharePoint, Yammer, and Skype. These three tools are not the only ones in the game, but unlike the rest, they focused on the enterprise and have enough funding to give Microsoft a run for its money. For each, real-time communication through instant messaging is the focus, using a social networking-style approach familiar to Millennial generation that seems to live on texting, Snapchat, and Facebook…READ ON

Adept 2015 Takes on Global Collaboration

Global collaboration is the name of the game in product development and engineering these days, and not surprisingly, the primary focus of Synergis Software’s latest upgrade to its Adept enterprise document management (EMC) platform. The newly released Adept 2015 ushers in a number of new concepts in the area of collaboration that in small ways take a page from social networking conventions popularized in the consumer world. In addition, the company has paid particular attention to scalability requirements with this release to ensure it has the horsepower to accommodate Synergis’ increasingly globally-dispersed clients…READ ON