Collaboration watchers may have observed that there were times when collaboration was seen as a threat to a highly prized culture of individualism. Collaboration was somehow perceived as being about collectives, group-thinks, and against individual brilliance. Today that has changed a lot since we have come to embrace the idea of collaborative individualism as a world view where best solutions can come from people collaborating without losing the capacity to be recognised for their own individuality. The practice of collaborative value-creation is now making businesses and industries more competitive and more attractive to emerging talent. No need to go any further than taking a look at the way innovation through collaboration works in Sweden, as the first in this series of recommended readings explains.

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

Innovation through collaboration

Sweden is the home of world-class companies, internationally acclaimed research and a proud track record of investment in tomorrow’s innovations. Our way of fostering innovation through collaboration, has led to the development of many Swedish companies that are global leaders in their respective clinical fields. An example of a Swedish flagship project for tomorrow’s healthcare is the development of optimized flows and IT tools for digital pathology by a Swedish life science company in partnership with academia and healthcare…READ ON

Former Facebook Execs Raise $50 Million More for Latest Venture

Collaboration software startup Asana, which counts Zappos and Uber among its biggest high-profile customers, has raised another $50 million in backing that more than doubles its last declared valuation, according to its two co-founders…READ ON

How 3M Drives Innovation Through Empathy And Collaboration

Michele Whyle is Director of Global Sustainability at 3M, widely considered one of the world’s most innovative companies. Its portfolio of 55,000 products includes the Post-it Notes on your desk, the ACE bandages in your medicine cabinet, and many less-visible industrial applications to improve lighting, transportation and power transmission…READ ON

The Office Of The Future Will Be Natural, Chair-less, And Designed For Collaboration

Office chairs that adjust to your body based on biofeedback. Walls that slide, shift, and change color according to worker needs. Three-dimensional printers that produce food and replicate office supplies. These are some of the possibilities in the “office of the future.”…READ ON

Is email really a good collaboration tool?

Raise your hand if you use email for collaboration and Outlook for information storage. You’re not alone – the majority of people use email for communications, of course (it’s the de facto standard), but also as a collaboration tool. Microsoft Outlook is now also the accidental storage system – a vast amount of an organisation’s knowledge resides in individual users’ inboxes. The reality though is that it’s an inhibitor, not abettor, of teamwork and information sharing; and highly unreliable and inefficient for storage as the content of those records are not accessible to others and therefore meaningless to the business…READ ON

Making collaboration technologies work for your business

Collaboration in the workplace has been defined by the digital generation. A trend sparked by BYOD and workers naturally being more ‘digitally social’ – sharing information has been taken to another level both inside and outside of the working environment. This is being reflected in many new technologies developed for businesses, the latest solutions are fundamentally designed to allow employees to communicate more effectively – whether it is a revamp of the company’s intranet or introducing the latest HD video conferencing system…READ ON

Resilience Strategies: Collaboration and Integration

Pursuing greater collaboration and integration can have a dramatic impact on a city’s resilience. Every city’s take on these qualities differs, but it’s clear that when cities work together with their citizens, local businesses, and other stakeholders, promoting collaboration between agencies, results improve and have longer-lasting benefits. When diverse groups organize, share ideas, and communicate, decisions draw from a broader insight base, priorities are better aligned, and outcomes achieve multiple goals instead of one—often producing a cascade of benefits…READ ON

Collaboration Bonus

Under the legislation, student organizations that collaborate on an event will be immune from any cuts that the committee is forced to make. Greenlaw said he hopes to eventually introduce an additional bonus on top of existing funding that collaborating organizations may receive…READ ON

5 Reasons You Should Build A Small Business – Not A Start-up

In Silicon Valley, it seems that everyone’s aspiration is to “Be A Founder.” I chatted with Jon Westenberg, who thinks that most people should focus on building a small business instead of chasing the startup dream…READ ON