Peter B. G
Social Media-Business Strategist▫Speaker▫Author▫Consultant ►Call for consultation on your Enterprise Social Med
Is there any business benefit to adopting collaborative technologies within the workplace?
This is a topic that seems to be evoking a great deal of debate from many quarters recently.
I have published an article on one of my Blogs - http://myitideas.blogspot.com/ - and on the IT Toolbox website - http://www.ittoolbox.com - I would like comments from my LinkedIn community where I am guaranteed to have a set of thoughtful responses.
Please do not think that this is an IT issue, it must be reviewed across the business community in order to ensure that corporate resources are used effectively
Clarification added August 5, 2008:
I have had a lot of good response from all of you.
There are some things that I have come to realise. There are many Web 2.0 technologies that are being promoted as new ideas - that are in-fact as old as IT. Take for example Instant Messaging it is not a Web 2.0 technology - I used this in 1977 (OK it was not as swish as MSN, but the basis was the same - to hold to communicate with someone on-line). Likewise discussion forums have existed as long as we had modems to connect to some form of on-line service.
What has changed is how we are leveraging these capabilities to change business. Enterprise communications and collaboration requires:
= The right building blocks, including an intelligent framework to combine voice, video, and data)
= A preparedness to share knowledge,
= A workforce that is empowered to integrate and collaborate.
Cisco (amongst others) is researching mechanisms that will provide an integrated workforce experience. Thanks to Brad Wage for this information.
I still believe that the best foundation is a business that is seeking to leverage collaborative technology in order empower their workforce and provide tools and knowledge that will facilitate growth.
Good Answers (14)
Ross C
Project Management and Communications Leader
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Peter,
I tend to take a far more "emerging technologies" perspective on this topic. Therefore, I focused in on Julie McLellan's response as the one that rang true thus far.
Most medium to large companies have already been in the business of finding new and better ways of sharing information and promoting collaboration - but the key aspect that points to the "hot topic" here is their pervasiveness and accessibility within a company. Your clarification where you state that many (most?) of these technologies are not new is spot on... so the real topic at hand is their use within a corporate environment.
Instant messaging is likely the most prevalent... but the ones that are making the powers that be nervous are beyond that. Corporate use of BLOGs and Wikis are on the bleeding edge here... but again, not new... just new to the "open access" availability concept.
I know I fall back on this idea with almost every response I post here in LinkedIn - but the core to this debate is business value. The challenge, therefore, is in placing value on having the person who is supposed to be stuffing envelopes in the mailroom spending some portion of his "on the clock" time posting in a wiki or BLOG or sending instant messages. How can that person improve the number of envelopes stuffed when they are "wasting time" online in what FEELS like nothing more than a social endeavor?
That's the culture issue that Julie (I think) put on the table.
Another culture issue that is (very) slowly evolving is the whole concept around ownership of knowledge. Historically, the way to gain power/control/success within a corporate environment was to know more than others. Thus, your value to the company was founded in your personal "stash" of skills and/or information. In the Enterprise2.0 universe, this concept is turned upside down. An individual's value is now based on their willingness and ability to SHARE information with others in the company, thus improving the collective IQ more so than any individual could.
So... if we let that person who was stuffing envelopes all day spend some portion of his/her time on a corporate BLOG or wiki, they may find out how to do their job more efficiently. Even more importantly, hopefully they will post their personal knowledge about how to get those envelopes out the door faster, and all of a sudden the whole envelope stuffing department is hitting record numbers....
Culture is one of the hardest things to change, but the massive impact that comes with that change makes it worth pursuing.
Clarification added August 5, 2008:
I have to add that there is a far less evident, yet potentially far more valuable, aspect that comes into play. To use my example of a person in the envelope stuffing department... let's speculate that those positions are historically high attrition. So... if involvement in the collaboration gives them a greater sense of community, we can make a logical assumption that they will be less prone to leaving. Further, they may find opportunities in other areas of the company.
Another aspect is the much touted "GenY" workforce, and the ongoing assertion that this generation has grown up "connected" with these technologies, and that the traditional corporate environment I mentioned above where knowledge can appear to be hoarded will feel very wrong to them - thus making turnover be an issue once more.
Finally, we can't ignore the reality that these technologies are becoming so readily available that they will enter the workplace - like it or not. Cell phones, text messaging, and mobile/wireless internet are so commonplace now that they cannot be ignored. I was at a restaraunt a couple of weeks ago, and watched a waiter pause in a less visible spot behind a wall and furiously text on his mobile... and eventually get caught by a manager who said something to the effect of "we have talked about this TOO many times!"... It's reasonable to assume that our workforce WILL be connected to any and all social networks they choose. As business leaders, we can either work to incorporate this reality into our business model, or see our valued human resources gravitate toward those companies that do.
Hi Peter,
For sure collaborative technologies brought a lot of business benefits, like the wikis (the main thing in my opinion) as you commented on your blog, mostly when you are thinking to implement a knowledge management process.
I would like to complement these technologies with unified comunications (wich includes collaboration solutions), that could help companies to reduce operational and travel expenses, maximize employees production, share knowledge in a online way, etc..
IT departments have a big responsability together with other envolved areas to develop and delivery those initiatives to generate value to their business.
Octavio B
Web 2.0 Entrepreneur ★ Corporate Strategist
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Hi Peter,
Based in my experience, I have identified the following business benefits of applying collaborative technologies within the workplace.
1. In companies working in multidisciplinary projects with dispersed around the world, using collaborative technologies has allowed to these companies minimize the repercussions of talent shortage in certain geographies by hiring this relevant talent in those countries where this is abundant and get them together by applying the proper collaborative technologies.
2. When collaborative technologies are utilized intensively in engineering projects is easier assure a satisfactory quality control according to international standards, when a team of talented engineers may do due of using collaborative applicational, technical reviews, fine-tuning and adjustments with lesser time and cost.
3. In organizations strongly oriented to their relevant markets, collaborative technologies like CRM have been instrumental in assuring higher levels of customer satisfaction that may be translated to a better competitive positioning.
4. Some organizations aware of the relevance and pertinence of preserving
and training the best talent available in the job market have developed in a corporate scope, knowledge management systems to preserve, disseminate, and improve the knowledge that is required in developing successfully medullar projects around the world.
5. Collaborative technologies have made possible the dream of aligning operational excellence with strategic alignment during project execution when is possible that management may get in touch with the executing teams by applying collaborative technologies.
6. In terms of employee engagement and motivation to work in high performance teams advocated to transformational projects these practices when have been applied in tandem with Employer Brand Management practices have been instrumental in improving the visibility and attractiveness of a company like a great place to work.
Relevant to this interesting theme, i am including links to 3 questions that I have posted some time ago in Linkedin Answers:
1. What would be different in the culture of the knowledge based company?
2. Does Innovation happen at the intersection of market insight and technological know-how; if so, what is the missing link?
3. How should we lead knowledge driven organisations in the 21st century?
I hope this helps you.
Octavio
Links:
Peter,
I have been involved in workplace studies for over 16 years, speak on lean and innovation and represent many clients on facilities, workplace and productivity issues.
The workplace is changing. Global forces, fewer employees expected to do much more than ever, technology innovations, etc... We see a shift in workplace going from open office and offices at the core to private work areas with increased areas for impromptu, formal and informal meeting areas. Specialization has also resulted in more partnerships, alliances and strategic approaches of multiple companies or regional teams coming together to address client demands. We see co-locating teams, web based project management programs, video conferencing, etc... These drivers and more place a greater need on collaboration. Providing team members the capability to capture and debate thoughts and ideas when they occur, enabling team members to constructively challenge one another but also giving them private space for "heads down" thought need to be integrated.
In a nutshell I believe you need to integrate multiple resources, tools, spaces to accomodate various workstyles that take place.
Hope that helps.
Lee
I didn't find anything pertinent at ITtoolbox, but I read your 'blog... of course I'm enough of a dinosaur to think that the web, in its entirety, is and was intended as the original "'blog". Seems to me there are a lot of definitional issues left unfinished, but on the other hand I completely want to get to the point! (I think we're in agreement on that.)
Something I've noticed from six sigma and truly corrosive (organically, as opposed to institutionally maintained) environments (where the ends wrap around), and both have been few and far between in my 20+ years in IT (but they've been fantastic places to work, "hard fun" to borrow from Piaget) is an almost Woody Allenesque willingness to talk about risks... but without paralysis. (That "without paralysis" part is important.)
Social media (internal) can provide a convenient place to jot notes about such risks.
I think corporations tend as a matter of culture (and they're made up of whomsoever they're made up of) tend to equate "risk averse" with not talking about risk and it's a bad mistake. I suppose that in the extreme sites like f***edcompany.com were, in their day, intrinsically and organically attempts to call attention to various risks and a bleedthrough of corporations failing to acknowledge their own (often fatal) hemorrhage.
So by implicitly or explicitly calling on corporations to pay attention to and manage their internal social networking (and nurture it), I am hereby postponing the day of reckoning for most... and acknowleding with humour and delight the few which "get it".
Pankaj T
Business Dev. Exec. at Second Foundation
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Although I am not so sure about emerging debates such as the use of social media in the enterprise, as the results are not so easily demonstrable in such cases, there are certain areas in which collaboration technologies have immediately demonstrable benefits. Some examples are:-
1) Document Management - All businesses must handle information. In fact it would be right to say that a major part of what modern businesses do is to absorb information, process it, store it, and further sell it. To be able to do this in a seamless virtual environment has vast efficiency benefits.
The first requirement is the ability to easily capture and store this information, and make it available instantly to the people who need it.
Secondly, employees need to be able to get together to work on this information, and sometimes there is even need to work together with external parties like clients and partners. It is certainly not viable for all parties to be together when such working together is necessitated.
Moreover, when information goes over successive phases of change it makes sense to track these changes (it is also a compliance requirement) in case older versions may need to be reverted back to.
All this and more is what a good Document Management system allows - remote access, the ability to work simultaneously on documents from remote locations, the ability to keep track of document changes through versioning etc.
Productivity Tools - Collaboration systems also offer a vast array of tools which lubricate everyday working of a business. Amorphous as modern businesses are, we are simultaneously part of multiple projects, have multiple work assignments to complete, many of which are dependant on inputs from others, multiple meetings to attend, multiple industry happenings to keep track of, multiple clients who are at different phases of the sales cycle. WHEW! If we did not have an efficient way of handling this multitude of pressures from all directions we would certainly have a nervous breakdown. And this is just what tools like shared calendars, project scheduling tools, contact directories, polls, customer extranets et al are supposed to enable.
Collaboration tools are no longer just a luxury, they are a "threshold requirement" (as they taught us in management school), if we want to keep afloat in the pacy business environment nowadays. Everybody has them, and not to have them would mean to get left behind.
Another side of the debate is that such technologies are much more within reach for all sizes of organizations, than they were years ago. New approaches like SAAS allow companies of all sizes to have benefits previously available to big businesses for only a low monthly subscription.
A live example of the effectiveness of collaboration technology is our own company. We implemented a web based collaboration solution called HyperOffice. It has enabled us to effectively outsource some aspects of our work, even while keeping total control through its virtual environment. In addition to drastically reducing project cycles, we were immediately able to save on manpower costs.
Links:
Collaborative technologies bring real benefit when they are intuitive, easy to use, have a clearly articulated value proposition that resonates with the users and are supported well by the service teams. Many organizations seem to just roll out a technology and then wonder why it does not get used as intended.
I remember the early telepresence and knowledge management systems. Great promise, but I don't recall many people (apart from the ones that sponsored them, that is) using them after one or two frustrating experiences. Now, they are easy to use and despite the expense of some of the more upmarket systems have a quantifiable business case.
Darren S
Workplace Consultant at Steelcase - The Leader in Commercial Furniture and Workplace Strategy
Hi Peter,
My answer is somewhat biased since I work for the company; however you should check out Media:Scape from Steelcase; a new product developed behind research specific to your question. Media:Scape allows groups from two to eight people to meet in a collaborative environment and share their ideas using technology. It's all about "Connections."
Media:Scape is brand new, (available next spring), it was pre-viewed in Chicago June 08' at NeoCon. This "environment concept" is a huge benefit to idea collaboration using technology. Let me know if you want to learn more. -ds
Julie G
CEO at Corporate Governance and Board Consultant
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There will only be a benefit to implementation of collaborative tehnologies if the company has a culture that rewards collaborative behaviours. Whilst in most businesses these tools would add value (the exemptions being businesses where internal 'chinese walls' are important to safeguard restricted information) they add nothing but expense if staff see them as either a cynical way for their expertise to be grabbed from them and used by others without their knowledge or permission (let alone any thanks) or as a complex and time-wasting exercise to enter in data that is then difficult to extract when they next need it.
I have seen these technologies fail in law firms, consulting firms ad multinational resources companies because the business spent big on technology but ignored the human factors behind encouraging usage.
If the culture is right and if employees are recognised, thanked and rewarded for sharing then the technology will develop benefits.
Links:
In a practical sense, would you rather have your dispersed workforce connecting with strangers online to gossip and socialize or connect with their professional colleagues to collaborate and problem-solve? When the results of collaborative problem-solving and identified and rewarded, most knowledge-workers will use available technology, including Web 2.0, to become more productive. The IT component of this teaming strategy is effective infrastructure development and building collaboration into the culture itself.
Peter,
Deployment of web 2.0 application within Cisco has been one of the more important initiatives. Wiki pages are expected to top 300,000 this year up 200,000 from 2007. I think it's a very exciting a beneficial territory that we are embarking on. Just a small example that I see here at Cisco is the number of mac users growing pretty rapidly. Macs are not officially supported here at Cisco but there is a wiki dedicated to the community and getting them to work seamlessly with the unified communications services. It's a wonderful thing to see when web 2.0 tools are enabling other social epidemics to happen.
Links:
Darren W
Services Account Manager at Cisco Systems
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No one has put this one in but a suggestion for you to find out more: you might find a really useful read on this subject is the blog on “wikinomics” http://www.wikinomics.com/blog/ and the book by Don Tapscott – it gives great examples of how collaboration is working in strange new ways in the business world.
Great Discussion.
My company has recently created a web based knowledge sharing tool...snapanswers.com.
I will be frank, marketing is tough.
What i can contribute to this conversation iswhat i am learning as a market snapanswers:
Yes, these tools will only work in cultures of knowledge sharing and reward. we are not wasting our time trying to convert customers to the value of that, they get it now or they do not.
The business value?
For the past 15 years i have been earning big $ to come into companies as a consultant and offer knowledge that I know is in the company. the problem is mining it. External help, like myself and I hope my peers don't shot me for this, we get listened to because we have an expert label. But every organizations has its own experts and the best knowledge sharing tools, like snapanswers, help organizations to assign those labels internally and mine that knowledge resources which are right under their noses.. Does it not make sense to use the internal resources you have already paid for...you just need a way to do it that is easy, engaging and useful to users.
I also agree with Ross that retention is a big business value for . collaborative/knowledge sharing tools. It is amazing but true, that in the age of constant connection our employees can and do feel isolated. The newest generational cohorts entering the work force will not tolerate that . They are the connected generation and they have been taught to learn collaboratively...does this make the business value clear?
Anand C
Entrepreneur, Inventor, Investor, Computer Engineer, CEO of BrainReactions LLC [anand.chhatpar@ brainreactions.com]
I'd like to point you to an article I wrote on this very subject that will shed light on the exact problems that can be solved by knowledge sharing:
http://tinyurl.com/snapanswers
Links:
More Answers (8)
Peter,
We think about this topic every day at GroupSwim. Bottom line - collaborative technologies should bring tangible benefits to businesses or why would the business pay for one. The main benefit is to enhance productivity and better leverage the knowledge work that employees perform every day. Collaborative technologies (GroupSwim in our case) provide a way to capture, re-use and enhance the work people do, which in turn provides real benefits to the business and its customers. The "real" benefits are ultimately realized in increased revenue, decreased costs, and/or increased customer satisfaction. Hope this helps.
Hi Peter,
Jack Welsh said, collaborative efforts are always good, though you know, you have to take the decisions alone.
You might choose to select a few or more for opinions or want to delegate.
Edward J
▌►Managing Director, Rebel Visions Corporation◄ ▌
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I will make my response short and sweet. Collaboration software can be beneficial to almost any organization. However, the deeper issue at hand is not collaboration. Rather, it is the concept of teamwork and how to get one's organization to epitomize the very essence of the term; the culture.
The ultimate task of tasks in the realm of Change Management and the very core of operational excellence and eficiency.
Peter M
Facilities, Front Desk Operations, vow to wow, project start up and implementaion
Best Answers in: Facilities Management (1)
Metcalfe Law's states that "the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of users of the system."
Hey Peter,
As we have been maturing our organizations operational excellence in an effective way through various proficient collaboration techniques. There are bounties of applications including Collaboration Management Applications on hand in the Market, which speaks on:
· Project & Program Management,
· Process Management,
· Billing,
· Reporting,
· Knowledge Management
· Resource Management et al, and the list goes on….
But so as to keep up with the velocity in the market the focus should divert on:
· Strategic coalition of the goals and the vision of the organization by formulating, communicating, facilitating responsibility allocation, efficient tracking and scorecarding the performance.
· Capturing innovative ideas and initiatives throughout the enterprise and providing structured workflow to evaluate these till the deployment.
And that’s where competitive organizations should look forward for the unison of applications, which can cater to compound objectives while considering the specific need of your business.
Also if want to understand more about this particular Strategy and Initiatives Management you can connect to Kailash Pinjani
Cheers!!
Anshu
Anshu B also suggests this expert on this topic:
April D
In-House SEO Webmaster
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Having built maintained and customized light to heavyweight collaborative web based solutions in a corporate and consulting capacity...
Yes - benefit is knowledge management, sharing, greater efficiency and productivity.
This only works in cultures that embrace the concept of knowledge sharing, have something of value to share, and have the time and permission to participate in said collaborations.
I have watched many companies fail miserably in that aspect, not because the tool wasnt great or the intent was not solid, but because the culture was not receptive - ready for collaboration.
Rob D
Innovation Catalyst. Director of innovation & commercialization group. Keynote speaker, author, consultant.
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Hi Peter,
Please feel free to be in touch - I am doing my doctoral research on this very question. I should have some fresh data by early next year, and would be happy to share ideas with you. I can be reached at rduncan@bcit.ca. Cheers..Rob
Depends on your business.
