Business Interaction Management

Collaboration within the enterprise is difficult because most of the defence mechanisms that exist in normal social contexts cannot be deployed within the enterprise.

Words are an extremely poor representation of our reality and it only gets worse when we write them down, especially in PowerPoint.

We have looked at how companies collaborate, so now let's move on to individuals.

The basic premise of collaboration is simple: working together to achieve a common goal. However, can it be done without consequences?

"Like most things in life, collaboration is a simple thing. However, we humans have tendency not to think too much about simple things and then, they seem to become complex, since they rarely work out as planned. This paper is an exercise in simple thinking about simple things so that we might understand what makes them really work."

In this complex world we live in, most decisions require the involvement of multiple individuals. However, we must be aware of the fact that decisions are never made by a group, but always by individuals.

"In this on-going collaboration debate, too many people view collaboration as a solution to a problem. It is not. Collaboration is the behaviour that emerges in contexts that invite for collaboration."

Not large corporations, but networks of small companies and individuals will be the future drivers for innovation and prosperity. A policy paper of The Lisbon Council.

The potential of Enterprise 2.0 is real, but it has to be looked for in the spaces where it really can excel. One of these spaces is business-to-business interoperability.

"Especially we, people with an IT-background, live too much with the illusion that we can capture our reality in bits. Unfortunately, what we are capturing is only a poor representation of a far deeper and far more complex reality."

"In the context of social business, too much of the thinking is focused on creating homogeneity, a level playing field for all participants. Instead, it should embrace diversity and complexity."

Customer-centricity or getting closer to customers is often the focus of many executive meetings I attend these days. The question always arises, "how can we use new media to get closer to customers?" The answer is not, develop a social media strategy to start engaging with customers. The answer is, change.

Economies of scale are well understood. Bigger factories are more efficient, bigger distribution networks are more efficient, bigger ad campaigns can be more efficient. It's often hard to defeat a major competitor, particularly if the market is looking for security and the status quo. But what about the economies of small? Is being bigger an intrinsic benefit in and of itself?

This blog is focused on "exploding" old concepts and thinking about economies, organizations, communities, and groups.\n\nWe will focus on patterns of connectivity and self-organizing behavior in economic and social networks and how these new structures lead to resilience, adaptability, agility, transparency, and innovation.

Mastering value creation in the knowledge economy demands an appreciation for the pivotal role of intangible capital and a thorough understanding of network dynamics.

Last week I attended the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston. It's one of my favorite events, primarily because so many online friends attend from around the world and I enjoy their company. Despite overwhelming good will among participants, the conference exposed gaps between expectations and reality that continue to plague the Enterprise 2.0 world.

More than ever, Enterprise 2.0 is the talk of the town. However, the discussion remains difficult due to a continuing bias towards tools and technology. Therefore, an attempt for a real look at the internals of Enterprise 2.0, the dark forces of collaboration.

Social media is most transformative when used inside the company, says Web 2.0 expert Leon Benjamin - and the implications are far reaching...

12 Rules For Bringing 'Social' To Your Business\n\nRarely do I take a negative viewpoint on new developments, especially in technology. But lately, with the seemingly runaway rise of highly successful social networks like Facebook and Twitter, it's become clear that adding the word "social" to virtually any product or service has become the current marketing trend du jour, often to the detriment of the consumers of those offerings.

Today's networked era requires a new way to make investment decisions that incorporates intangible assets and more accurately depicts how value is created.