The new system, as has been reported, is ultimately not a new concept but a convergence of three widely used services (email, IM and text messaging). Early murmurs of “email killer” are running wild on the blogosphere. Down the road this rumor may prove itself true, but at first glance this appears to be more of practice in collaboration than competition. And in our humble observations of the evolution of the “Web 2.0,” the theme of collaboration seems to be a common thread in all recipes for success. 

Granted, there have been some flashes of pure stand-alone brilliance, but ultimately it seems the widespread acceptance and utilization of a service goes hand in hand with the users’ ability not only to contribute to a platform, but to “mashup” these platforms. Whether that collaboration is manifested through Open Source Software (such as OpenOffice from Sun Microsystems), Apple’s iOS Developer Program or the Facebook Connect API, the core element of each of their successes is in the practice of sharing knowledge and opening up tools, rather then sequestering them. 

Traditionally, anecdotes for business innovation summon stories about “the mini-van” or “velcro,” or other similar moments of inspired genius. In Silicon Valley it seems this traditional thinking around innovation has evolved to not only think of the consumer as a receiver of the product, but more importantly as a creator of the product. In short, crowdsourcing is the new king.

And in this new thinking it appears to us the real question for businesses has effectively evolved from “what is our next great idea” to “how can we create a culture of sharing ideas.”

Below are some of our key takeaways from the interview:

- The importance of moving collaboration from a “Portal” strategy to a “Social” strategy.
“In the consumer world, you might have used My Yahoo, and it’s a great destination, but once you find what you want, you leave. With a community, people come and engage with each other. That’s the kind of engagement we want with our customers.”

- Salesforce vs. Jive vs. Sharepoint – Who has it Right?
The Jive folks are pretty committed to working with other technologies, like SharePoint and Salesforce. I think they realize they need to have a strategy to play nice with everyone else.

- Creating a Culture of Collaboration in Organizations.
“When you put something out on the Web, there are no instructions on how to use external Web sites. You just kind of get there and you figure it out. People just opt in. When you do this internally, we can bring in the technology and make it easier to use. It’s only valuable internally if you get the vast majority of people participating. How are we going to create that mindshare?

The thing you have to realize is that you don’t just enable this one time and walk away. It’s a program. You have to continuously go out and monitor usage.”

- On the future on Email.
“I don’t think it’s going to die… (but)… for many kids nowadays, in their world email is a secondary or tertiary form of communication.”

Check out the entire interview here.

• Social Project Management
• Knowledge Communities
• Merger & Acquisition Optimization
• New-hire Integration
• Workspace Design

Collaborating with your ecosystem of workforce, partners and suppliers reduces operational costs, retains critical knowledge, improves job satisfaction and surfaces ideas for innovation. Organization’s perform better when people find what they need.

For many of the organizations that I speak/work with regarding knowledge networks/communities of practice they have [or are planning on implementing] a collaboration software package with many slick bells and whistles but without a clear path and strategy for getting up and running – this often results in an empty knowledge landscape with little showing except for some bells and whistles strewn about.

Even in the CIO world it’s popular to say that collaboration and innovation isn’t about the software but what do you do in addition to buying software? 

The Iceberg in IT

The delimna I frequently witness is what I call the ‘Iceberg in IT’ conundrum.  Someone decided that people needed to collaborate more and told IT to implement a package that enables collaboration.  While a good software package is certainly a required step, I prefer to put it near last instead of first. 

Using the admittedly cliche and ubiquitous iceberg metaphor above, social software is simply the visible thing that enables collaboration to happen.  When IT is told to purchase it when there is no strategy to generate adoption, it will feel cold and barren [sorry - couldn't help it].  In order to truly affect how this can help people do their jobs there is a large amount of work that needs to done behind the scenes…hence the 7Cs of success:

• Capturing:  the notion of collaboration is foreign in many organizations so people often need to be shown what potential is there if they were to collaborate.  We always visit different geographic locations and capture [via video, audio, memory stick, etc.] what people are working on so that we can determine common topics and have some seed material to begin populating the software system.
• Connecting:  even software that’s designed to connect people will do little in that regard if left on its own.  People [especially when at the early phases] need some help connecting with one another – simple things like setting up bridge calls and facilitating conversations serve to build trust and awareness and provide nuggets of content that can be housed in the platform.
• Combining: in a dispersed organization you’re bound to find bits and pieces of similar work living in a great many places.  Helping the users combine that information using the wiki feature of a platform, for example, will show users the efficiency in working together while training them on what in the world a ‘wiki’ is.
• Contextualizing: the most effective collaboration initiatives will integrate members from an organization’s suppliers and customers and related academic institutions.  Translating that into compelling content that will make sense to your users will be critical in getting them to absorb and leverage it.
• Confirming:  similar to above, if you’re getting knowledge from various sources, care must be taken to ensure that what’s being provided is accurate information so that it can be acted upon.
• Circulating:  what good is the best information if no one knows about it?  The role of a community/network coordinator is essential in circulating news about what’s new, recent questions, etc.
• Communicating: having someone dedicated to getting the word out about the success stories in your knowledge network will go a long way in generating interest, excitement and ,of course, additional funds that will be necessary to continue operations.

Having an effective Web 2.0 collaboration platform at the center of this activity certainly will make it much easier to coordinate but the software alone [today's versions anyhow] will never replace the behind-the-scenes efforts required to start and sustain collaboration and innovation.