Anecdote: I'm giving a talk on collaboration and your invited

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23/01/09 |

I'm giving a talk on collaboration and your invited

By Shawn Callahan. Follow me on Twitter. Filed in Collaboration, Communities of practice, News.

For years software vendors and consulting firms have been developing SAP software components for NSW government agencies and on-selling the same software to numerous other NSW government agencies. These practices are only possible in an environment where the government agencies do not collaborate. In 2008 these agencies got together to share how they were using SAP and worked on ways to collaborate on new government-wide developments. In the first few days of collaborating a tiny piece of code to change how invoices were handled was shared across multiple agencies—each of the receiving agencies saved $5,000 by sharing rather than reinventing. And some of the developments cost millions to develop. The potential benefits are staggering.

When times are tough it’s important to make the most of available resources. Organisations of all shapes and sizes have spent millions of dollars on ‘collaboration’ software yet the level of sophistication in the way we collaborate hasn’t improved dramatically. It’s time to be more systematic and effective collaborators and this starts with understanding what it really means and not fretting over the functionality of communication software, regardless of how alluring the latest web 2.x version looks. We need to build collaborative cultures and skills.

This presentation describes why collaboration matters now more than ever. It paints the picture of what we are up against but shines a light on what’s possible. And by understanding the different ways of working together and the different types of collaboration we can create a new mental model as our collaboration foundation.

Most of the presentation, however, will focus on the practicalities of developing effective collaboration cultures and skills with plenty of illustrations from our work with organisations like NSW Government, Rio Tinto, BAE Systems, and a sprinkling of examples from around the world.

The foundations are there. The software is available. The need is clearly here. 2009 will mark the tipping point where organisations will move from emphasising collaboration tools to placing the effort on people, on their behaviours and capabilities. We mustn’t forget: it’s people who collaborate.

When: Monday March 2, 12:00 - 2:00pm

Where: Treasury Theatre, Lower Plaza, 1 Macarthur St. East Melbourne

Light Refreshments provided

To RSVP click here

You might like to read our paper on collaboration as pre-reading.

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