Customer Reviews

Collaboration 2.0: Technology and Best Practices for Successful Collaboration in a Web 2.0 World

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My personal experience in key segments of the collaboration software market space stretches back about 25 years, pre-dating "CRM" even before it was called "sales force automation," with products such as ACT!, and later GoldMine (especially through the 90s) as they moved from desktops to networks.

It was a crowded, confusing marketplace then, and it's even-more-so now. But David Coleman and Stewart Levine have taken an often brilliant stab at the interesting challenge of looking at collaboration beyond the sales force, on an organizational level, in their new book, "Collaboration 2.0: Technology and Best Practices for Successful Collaboration in a Web 2.0 World."

I've read two books in the past five months that will have a direct impact on my business, my sales and my life and Collaboration 2.0 is one of those. (The other being Sales Essentials by Stephen Schiffman.) Throughout Coleman & Levine's book they deal with people, processes, and technologies that best complement each other. I believe these two authors provide a first-class overview of collaboration technologies, how they can be applied and what the best behaviors are to help make "teams" work more effectively.

The authors cover a wide scope on a very fragmented and rapidly evolving technology environment and help the reader make sense of it.

Although the first part of the book written by David Coleman does give a great overview of current and emerging collaboration technologies, it also ties these technologies to specific business processes measured against what they call "collaborative leverage."

I think this is important in that collaboration without a specific place to apply it and without a specific goal is just software that can promote social interactions between people. But online communities, whether social or business, must meet some objective. And in the case of business users, collaborative efforts must be "dollarized."

The second part of the book, written by Stewart Levine, really looks at people and processes and deals with techniques to build trust and agreement. Most of Stewart's ideas are very practical, and often can be seen as "Communication 101." The fact that Levine applies these techniques to the new collaborative environments is one of the things that make this book so essential.

The final part of the book looks at how to apply the best practices of people, process and technology (for collaboration) and how to get the most from this application. The final chapter takes a somewhat "big picture" view and looks at the effects of collaboration on society, and in this case, how these collaboration technologies affect environmental sustainability.

To me this book is a "must-read" for people who sell or who market products and services for a living. It shows you how to work smarter and the bottom-line benefit is that you can cut the length of the sales cycle. This is the biggest bugaboo in the game. I need deals closed today, not tomorrow. Collaboration, done right, helps to make that happen. I don't have to always feel like I'm all out there alone.

Before I started my own company (sixteen years ago) my boss used to say to me daily, "Make it happen. It has to happen." I just wish I had collaboration tools and techniques back then, instead of nothing more than a pair of brass balls.

If you sell for a living, I highly recommend this book. If you are involved in any "project-type" work, the book is recommended. For students and professionals alike who have an interest in collaboration in the new millennium, this is a book that will benefit you in many ways!

While not news for many of us, much of what is driving the developments in Collaboration and the developments in collaboration tools is the necessity to create a Virtual Team space (VTS). Early in the book the authors define 10 trends in collaboration, the most interesting to me is the trend which they call, "Presence Everywhere" - which means being able to detect which involves basically being able to quickly find a person whether they are online or on the phone or in a conference room. A typical scenario as to when this may be useful is given (and I am sure a familiar one to everyone); A and B are working together via web conference and they need C to help solve an issue. Typically one or both A and B will be looking through their buddy lists to see if C is available online, if not both may try calling C via various numbers; office, cell, etc., and if they are finally successful in finding C it may take several clicks of sending links to bring C in to the web conference. IBM is working on their Sametime product to have this type of capability to reach external contacts. LiteScape also apparently has ways to detect the availability of users not only via instant messenger buddy lists but also from your list of outlook contacts and detect their presence via mobile devices.

If you were not already familiar with the term, the book introduces you to "mashups" as another trend in collaboration. A mashup is the process of creating a hybrid application built from data or functionality found across a number of different applications. An example of this can be seen in a site listing real estate, for example, which uses a 3rd party site or application to provide information about criminal activity in or around the house which is for sale.

There is no shortage of collaboration tools which the book introduces you to such as TimeBridge which can help you schedule meetings faster, but a great part of the book is the emphasis on the human aspect of collaboration. As they say, collaboration is 10% tools and 90% people.


The second half of the book takes a look at the human side of collaboration with chapter 7 specifically focusing on virtual teams. A very good point is made at the beginning of the chapter that the challenge has traditionally been how to minimize diversity among the people on teams whereas the key in the future will be to embrace the differences and work with them. I agree with this whole heartedly and would extend this to all aspects of working in a distributed manner, for example - time differences, location differences, etc.

Chapters 8 through 14 also focus on different aspects of people and processes. A lot of what was written was review on how teams work, it will most likely be review for a lot of people. What I found funny was, for example in Chapter 9 on Interpersonal communication, the author mentions how important Mirroring/Identifying is in building report, but he doesn't go in to the next step of how you do this when using collaboration tools.

Chapter 15 is supposed to bring it all together; the human side and the technology side, but I found it a bit lacking. It talked more about the different stages a company may be at in using collaboration tools, and why they may have problems implementing them, but it did not seem to go that step further and talk about how to overcome the actual road blocks to working with distributed teams and actually using the technology.

In general this is what I thought was lacking in the book overall; actual examples or case studies of the use of tools and use of team interaction processes to overcome problems. On pg. 194, the authors discuss the work of one of their clients, and I agree it is an excellent example of an operational agreement between two distinct agencies. There is a lot of detail there, however, there are very few other real life examples given in the book. Adding additional examples and case studies, which I have no doubt the authors must have from their consulting practices, would have made the book much stronger.

My first thought with this book is that it is especially good for larger companies which are working with a number of collaboration tools, or looking to implement them. However, chapters 1 through 6 which relate to the different technologies that are available, as well as the appendixes listing a number of different technologies, can also be very interesting for smaller firms which are often working virtual from the very start of their existence. As well, for most anyone who reads this book, unless you are a study of collaboration tools you will most likely be surprised at the wide range of tools available and perhaps at what is considered collaboration technology. As far as functionaries who will appreciate this book; marketing folks can certainly get a number of ideas for tools that they can use to do their jobs better, software engineering folks, and anyone who has to deal with remote teams on a daily or almost daily basis will benefit from reading this book.

With all due apologies to Mark Twain, it seems as though everybody talks about Collaboration but nobody does anything about it. Especially on the B2B side. The younger generation engages social networking technologies, and are probably in the best position to understand the principles of Collaboration.

But on some level, as with previous business buzzwords such as "Quality" and "Virtual," this concept threatens to become "Collaboration" in some quarters, instead: a poor clone of a great practice.

There's nothing new about collaboration, per se: corporate IT systems of the 70s and 80s ran expensive Decision Support Systems (most notably from Comshare) that eventually found their way to the PC platform, with products such as Forest & Trees.

In theory, enterprise-wide collaboration is a "given." So in the 21st century, we're supposed to know how to collaborate, whether an organization operates that way (or can, or wishes to) or not.

This is not to suggest that there are not, literally, hundreds of products and software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications for organizations to adopt. In point of fact, from free services to expensive products, the number of collaboration software options is mind-numbing.

So David Coleman and Stewart Levine, authors of "Collaboration 2.0: Technology and Best Practices for Successful Collaboration in a Web 2.0 World" have taken on the Herculean task of looking at collaboration holistically, and throughout the book try to deal with the holy triumvirate of collaboration: people, process and technology.

The first part of the book, written by Coleman, details current and emerging collaboration technologies, tying them to specific business processes exhibiting what he calls "collaborative leverage."

Rather than adopt a solution in search of a problem, i.e., implement collaboration software without first identifying how and where to apply it, merely brings "social networking to the corporate enterprise.

But to what effect?

The second part of the book, written by Levine, closely examines the essential part of the collaboration equation - people processes - as well as techniques to build trust and agreement.

Levine's approach seems almost too fundamental, but there's much to be said for simplifying this miasma of technologies, and having them make sense within distributed collaborative environments.

Which makes this book a highly valuable primer.

The last two chapters detail best practices of how to make viable that holy trinity of people, processes and technology within the organization overall, and how to get the greatest results from "going collaborative."

In fact, the final chapter goes beyond the workplace, examining the effects of collaboration on society, even to the point of affecting environmental sustainability. Intuitively, being able to save money by not traveling to trade show or meeting XYZ is a great concept. But on the Green side, there are very telling implications. For example, the pollution generated by a commercial jet airliner, because of its high altitude, is three times that of the same amount of pollution created on the ground...further support for the "Stay home and collaborate online, instead" argument.

All in all, then, Coleman and Stewart have handled a blindingly confusing topic quite handily, sussing out how to help make remote-located workgroups, departments, and cross-functional teams work more effectively.

They address the real needs of a technology and practice set that are very nearly growing almost out-of-control, and helps the reader (whether technical or business-oriented) make sense of it all.

I strongly recommend "Collaboration 2.0: Technology and Best Practices for Successful Collaboration in a Web 2.0 World" to anyone with a sincere desire to enable true collaboration within their organization, or just for themselves.

First and foremost I appreciate that authors David Coleman and Stewart Levine have made great strides to expand our view of what co-labor-ing is all about. The common understanding of the word "collaboration" has for too long been hijacked to mean simply sharing of documents. One recent example was in a software product review that included the following line: "The two most important aspects of cloud computing for small businesses are mobility (reading and editing documents on mobile devices) and collaboration (sharing and co-editing documents)."

Collaboration is so much more. As the authors vividly point out, effective collaboration requires comprehensive and simultaneous attention to people, process and technology. They remind us... "collaboration solutions that only focus on technology will fail if they do not also address the `soft stuff' - relationships, trust, behavior and attitudes." They go on to say "what has been missing and what is a key ingredient for successful 2.0 collaboration are some...protocols around the basics of interpersonal communication" How to communicate in a virtual environment has the same, and even more, challenges as communications in the physical world. Technology designs need to be mindful of "creating a context in which people communicate more effectively", and, the book rightly asserts, the number one communication roadblock is "Lack of Clear Agreements".

The latter section of the book presents an insightful discourse on what the authors call the "Law and Principles of Agreement", i.e. "Every collaboration is established in language by making implicit and explicit agreements.... Collaboration and agreement for results is simple, but it is not easy. It requires thoughtfulness and clear thinking on the front end before you move into action, and then a commitment to get through the rough spots after you begin."

We could not agree more. New software solutions are coming that go well beyond document sharing to address the "soft stuff". To facilitate effective collaboration technology can:
-- Create a context - a "space" in the virtual world where two or more parties can come together to carry on a dialog about achieving a shared outcome.
-- Guide behaviors - users make requests and offers to begin a dialog/conversation between collaborators.
-- Make agreements explicit - software controls that require a response from the performer, e.g. "Agree", "Decline", "Counter-offer", etc.
-- Provide protocols to guide the conversation flow - the conversation thread is "managed" by the software to include appropriate actions and comments that progress the conversation and close the loop.
-- Keep records - archive completed collaboration agreements for future analysis.
-- Provide metrics - measurement adds management insight and supports interventions to improve collaboration.

This book serves to broaden and deepen our understanding of how to improve collaboration - the fundamental skills, behaviors and practices that determine the effectiveness of all joint endeavors.

This 300-page book is definitely worth the read if you're keen on understanding the challenges of collaboration, its processes, and the software solutions available to help you get it right inside your organization.

I had a chance to meet David Coleman, one of the author. David is truly knowledgeable when it comes to "Collaboration 2.0" and the best way to unleash the potential of collaborative technologies without leaving people behind. This transpires in his book!

Collaboration 2.0 is ideal for people who use - or would like to use - any type of collaboration technology, from IM/Chat to a virtual team space. The book would be most beneficial for teams, groups, departments, cross-organizational teams and distributed organizations that are looking at some of the Web 2.0 technologies focused on communication, collaboration and interaction.

The authors' goal is to help people grasp the full array of tools available so they can make effective choices, whether their priority is better context, capacity, physical organization, desired outcomes and/or purposes of the collaboration.