Business collaboration started off as a necessity for some industries.  It slowly become a clever competitive strategy, then a norm.  Businesses that get collaboration also get the fact that collaboration is not a real choice; sloppy collaboration is a cost no business can sustain.  Some are learning this the hard way as they realise that they have to adapt to new state of play: businesses can’t function sustainably without collaboration being the part of their organisational culture.  Customers expect businesses to create products and services in a collaborative fashion too.  Failing to collaborate in business also means failing in business.  Some of this is evident in the following selection of collaboration focused articles from around the web.

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

Smart Cities: Innovation through Collaboration…source: http://www.techuk.org/insights/news/item/8693-smart-cities-innovation-through-collaboration-publicationhttp://www.techuk.org/insights/news/item/8693-smart-cities-innovation-through-collaboration-publication

Collaboration Is Key To Digital Transformation — So Is Changing A Mindset

The shoe appears to be on the other foot, when it comes to banking and technology. When the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) became the world’s first bank to adopt Facebook at Work last year, it was described in the media as a “landmark move,” “ground breaking” and in other superlative terms. More than six months later, it seems RBS senior management is still reeling from the experience…READ ON

Customer Collaboration Is The Future Of Business

A few years back, I witnessed one of my co-workers plotting to seek revenge on Time Warner Cable after a particularly annoying incident. Allegedly, she had taken a whole day off work to wait for the cable guy who never showed up, then later charged her for something she didn’t buy; when she called customer service, they put her on hold multiple times. The anger was building in her and she was determined to fix this on her lunch break, so she brought out the big guns: Twitter…READ ON

Teams Who Share Personal Stories Are More Effective

No matter what industry you are in or what job you do, you probably have experienced the frustration of working within a dysfunctional team — one marked by drawn-out discussions that led nowhere or heated conflicts that made communication difficult. To function properly, teams need to communicate effectively. How can you improve the odds of that happening?  Consider that when joining a team, people have a strong desire to feel accepted by the other members. This desire can lead individual members to prioritize “fitting in” over contributing unique information and adding maximum value…READ ON

Dropbox Announces New Tools To Make Collaboration Easier For Businesses

Each year, Dropbox spends thousands of hours just watching people work. The hope is to get a glimpse into their workflows, what’s working for them and what isn’t, and what Dropbox can do to make their experience using the service a little easier.  On Wednesday, the company announced a number of updates to Dropbox for Business based on that user research. The new features and services are designed to help teams be more collaborative and, consequently, more productive…READ ON

Nutreco CEO calls for industry collaboration over antimicrobial resistance threat

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global megatrend, and the attention on the use of antibiotics in raising animals will only increase in the coming years, warned Nutreco CEO Knut Nesse.  The World Health Organization confirmed last year that one cause of AMR — the process by which a microbe evolves to become more or fully resistant to antimicrobials which previously treated it — was the inappropriate use of antibiotics in animal husbandry…READ ON

7,100 Cities From 119 Countries Join Together in Historic Collaboration to Accelerate Climate Action

When UN Secretary-General Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change Michael R. Bloomberg suggested creating a Compact of Mayors to mirror the UN program for national commitments on climate change, it was not possible to guess how central the idea would become to putting mayors at the heart of global climate action. But it turned out to be a game changer…READ ON

EMA and FDA reinforce collaboration on patient engagement

New working group established to exchange best practices.  The European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have set up a new ‘cluster’ on patient engagement. The cluster will provide a forum to share experiences and best practices on the way the two agencies involve patients in development, evaluation and post-authorisation activities related to medicines…READ ON

This New Collaboration Makes It Easy to Dress Like a Street Style Star

Leandra Medine started her blog Man Repeller in 2010 as a catalog of her style obsessions and a diary of her own outfits, featuring such beloved-by-women, loathed-by-men trends as dresses over pants and socks with heels. Six years and 1.4 million Instagram followers later, Man Repeller now employs a team of writers dispensing off-kilter fashion advice, while Medine herself is one of the most photographed style icons in the world. So much for repelling…READ ON