Web 2.0 Collaboration – Using digital tools for redesigning governance, by Helio Teixeira. Source: http://www.helioteixeira.org/

2.  Organization is Collaboration
◦ Business is predominantly carried out by organizations,
and an organization is essentially an arrangement of
people working together for a common goal.
◦ In other words, collaboration is the essence of any
organization, and organizations exist to better organize
collaboration.

3.  Organizations have been slow to improve and
support this very collaboration as something that
could be of importance to the overall success of
the firm.

4.  to hire the best people and build teams and
departments with the necessary skills;
 to motivate people with bonuses and benefits…
 But when it comes to actually looking at the
interaction between people, and how an
organization can best support it, practices are
thin.

5.  An important aspect that also defines an
organization is that it is active within an
environment from which it is separated by
some boundary: there is an “inside” and an
“outside” of the organization.

6.  Where this boundary is, how large the
organization within this boundary is, and
how the organization is interacting across
this boundary has all changed due to
the power of the internet and other market
forces.

7.  In times of economic turmoil, there is a tendency
to focus on defensive measures by trying to
reduce costs and optimize efficiency. Looking at
productivity will surely help in that respect.
 Other companies will use these times for
exploring innovation: trying to find a new and
future market and developing a commodity that
will do well in that market.

9.  Trying to find new solutions, innovations and
opportunities that can be achieved by the people
who work for you.
 Help people make better and quicker decisions,
create better deliverables or do better
knowledge management.

10.  Even people that are not part of the organization
can be engaged to work with you, and for you.
 Thanks to the Web 2.0 tools that are widely
available, companies can “tap into the
collective intelligence.”
 And when you succeed in engaging these people,
they will be your future most loyal customers.

11.  To optimize existing processes and to create
new opportunities by starting an ongoing
dialogue with your customers.

12.  Before moving on, it will be interesting to look at
your own understanding of this concept:
 What is your definition of “collaboration”?
 Which other terms do you associate with it?
 In what context have you used the term in your
job recently?

13.  Interaction between multiple parties (two or
more);
 All parties are doing work; and
 With a shared purpose or goal, all parties will
get something in return for their efforts;
 It can be across boundaries.

19.  Regardless of the medium we’re using or the tools
we have to help us, we can talk about the
capabilities we need to collaborate effectively. We
have the need to:
◦ Have a place to store and add information, to create
deliverables and buildknowledge. Write it down on paper,
record it on tape or store it “in the cloud.”
◦ Interact, communicate: exchange information between
people, the main difference from doing something alone.
◦ Know and share “status”: is someone available? Can I
approach you with a question?

20. ◦ Know more about with whom we are communicating:
know the identity, role and position of someone we are
working with. Know the social networks.
◦ Discover information: search and find. Have a way to
structure information.
◦ Be notified: we don’t only want to search, we also want to
be notified of important events and information.
◦ Integrate: we want all these elements to be seamlessly
connected and integrated.

21.  Every kind of collaboration needs specific tools.
 What kinds of collaborations are there?

24.  Collaboration is essential to business and many
tools are available to support the various
capabilities that make up collaboration. But just
installing the tools, or using a tool from the
cloud, does not make you an “Enterprise 2.0”
overnight. The “build it and they will come” adage
does not apply.

25.  Creating new modes of collaboration supported by
technology can only be done by addressing the
human aspect. More specifically, we need to
address some of the worries and obstacles people
encounter when collaborating using technology.
The three most important concerns are:
◦ Trust
◦ Collaborative culture and
◦ Reward

26.  Trust
Trust is a condition for social interaction. People
will only work with people, companies, tools and
information they know they can trust. Before we
can expect collaboration to take off online, there
must be a way for people to get this “trust.”

27.  Collaborative culture
If one individual is the greatest collaborator in the
world, he or she is probably not getting anywhere.
Only when all people involved are part of the
same collaborative culture will new levels of
creativity and productivity be reached. A
collaborative culture consists of many things,
including: Collaborative leadership; Shared
goals; Shared model of the truth; and Rules or
norms.

28.  Reward
Changing the way people work takes effort, so it
must be clear for the parties involved what they
will gain, at a personal level, from collaborating in
a new way. Surprisingly, a “reward” for
successful collaboration is most often of a
non-financial nature.

29.  There are a number of different types of
collaboration that can occur in Web 2.0 systems:
◦ Content-based - This is where groups gather and
collaborate around a piece of news or content, typically
in a blog or a spaces-type environment.
◦ Group-based - In group collaboration people gather
around an idea or interest such as a hobby and discuss it
in discussion forums.
◦ Project-based - In project-based collaboration groups
work together on a common task or project such as a
development project, a book, or even something as large
as an encyclopedia using wikis.

30.  All three types of collaboration can be used in
Web 2.0 systems, and in many cases more than
one can be used.

31.  1. Ask the right questions
◦ The more specific the question, the better targeted and
more relevant the responses will be. Open-ended, “What
do you think of x?” questions only lead to unmanageable
and irrelevant feedback.

32.  2. Ask the right people
◦ Creating opportunities for self-selection allows expertise
to find the problem. Self-selection can be combined with
baseline participation requirements.

33.  3. Design for groups, not individuals
◦ “Chunk” the work into smaller problems, which can easily
be distributed to members of a team. Working in groups
makes it easier to participate in short bursts of time and
is demonstrated to produce more effective results.

34.  4. Use the screen to show the group
back to itself
◦ If people perceive themselves to be part of a
minimovement, they will work more effectively together
across a distance.

35.  5. Design the process for the desired
end
◦ The choice of methodology and tools will depend on the
results. But the process should be designed to achieve a
goal. That goal should be communicated up front.

36.  6. Divide work into roles and tasks
◦ Collaboration requires parceling out assignments into
smaller tasks. Visualizations can make it possible for
people to perceive the available roles and choose their
own.
◦ Ex.: Wikipedia works because people know what to do.

37.  7. Harness the power of reputation
◦ Organizations are increasingly using bubbling-up
techniques to solicit information in response to specific
questions and allowing people to rate the submissions.

38.  8. Make policies, not websites
◦ Improved practices cannot be created through
technology alone. Instead, look at the problem as a
whole, focusing on how to redesign internal processes in
response to opportunities for collaboration.

39.  9. Pilot new ideas
◦ Use pilot programs, competitions, and prizes to generate
innovation.

40.  10. Focus on outcomes, not inputs
◦ Design practices to achieve performance goals and
metrics. Measure success.

41. Helio Teixeira is founder of novoDialogo{.
He is an analyst, digital communication expert,
public speaker and editor of the Chapa Branca
Blog.
@helioteixeira
+55 82 9901 5090
heliolteixeira@gmail.com
helioteixeira@novodialogo.com.br
http://comunicacaochapabranca.com.br
http://novodialogo.com.br