if this comes off harsh, it is because the Cleveland Indians, my team, just blew it big time...
Most people like to be around other people. They like to be socially active and form bonds. Those bonds get more complicated and form networks. Networks soon spread from within one's area and reach outwards, becoming regional, to national, to international and finally global. Thus, it should be no exception to the rule that work should evolve from being mainly independent (with some exceptions) to collaborative (those exceptions can include musicians and sports teams). Programs as basic as Google Docs, and more complicated such as Basecamp, can allow for collaborative work. In an article titled Working Together...When Apart lists out 10 techniques to NOT violate these group dyanmics. Using Placeware, Microsoft's latest acquisition, Microsoft is attempting to follow suit and set up online meetings. Everything has become about "the greater good", and collaboration. Whether it works or not is up for debate, but what is not, is that it is the future. Another cool collaborative program is Google Calendar which allows you to see other people's calendars. Depending on settings, I'm pretty sure that you can edit them too.
But looking back at the article Working Together...When Apart, all of the 10 online collaboration techniques seem so obvious and like things that should happen in the real world as well as online. Some examples include "Assign tasks that are challenging and interesting"; "Ensure the task is meaningful to the team and the company"; and, "When building a virtual team, solicit volunteers as much as possible."
Individualism is the past and collaboration is the future...there's no way around it and no way to avoid it, for better or worse...
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Collaborative Employees
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5 comments:
I agree with your idea that the 10 suggestions could be applied to teams that are in person, but that is not the point. Because we don't have the resources people who have proximity do we must follow these rules 10 fold. No matter how you go about being long distance the company wouldn't enter into long distance relations unless it were completely necessary, they are far less likely to be productive. However, these days all industries are becoming international and we must focus on the best way to approach this as we go into the future.
I agree that the Working Together...When Apart article states nothing but common sense. Especially tip nine which you mentioned (ensuring that the task is meaningful to the team and company). This is becoming the era of collaboration in our society. It makes me wonder how our individual achievement oriented culture will adapt to the idea of the team and the good of the team instead of the individual.
In rebuttal to Ally's comment, two things happened with my latest post. First, i violated several of the intense "blogging" rules and wrote when I was in a terrible mood (see what happens when you wait until the last minute?). Among a couple person things that happened, the Cleveland Indians lost to the Boston Red Sox to go to the World Series. Second, the reading was something I felt i've read 10 times now. Last, i wanted to write something DIFFERENT! look at everyone else's posts...they are practically about the same thing. Mine isn't...
Yeah you are right. The tips or ideas of the article "working together....when apart" are so obvious and common sense. but since virtual teams are growing much bigger under the stress of globalization , It's good to refresh our memory of the basic or common sense tips.
Collaboration adds new and fresh ideas but they can also become obstacles if not managed properly. Did the collaboration get the expected results from the latest idea?
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