The result is an egregious lack of productivity that may cost the U.S. economy $588 billion a year, according to a report by Basex, which has tabbed information overload as the "Problem of the Year" for 2008.
With e-mail as the biggest offender, Basex said users can save time by not e-mailing someone, and then following up with a phone call or an instant message two seconds later
Basex also said users must not combine multiple topics or requests in a single e-mail; make sure the subject clearly reflects the topic and urgency of the message; read their e-mails before sending to make sure they make sense; and will not hit reply-all unless necessary or reply with one-word e-mails such as "thanks.
For all communication, Basex wants to remind workers to be as explicit as possible because their readers are not mind readers. While the statement may seem like an obvious mantra, it is also easily forgotten.
"Information Overload: We Have Met the Enemy and He is Us," authored by Basex analysts Jonathan B. Spira and David M. Goldes and released Dec. 19, claims that interruptions from phone calls, e-mails and instant messages eat up 28 percent of a knowledge worker's work day, resulting in 28 billion hours of lost productivity a year. The $588 billion figure assumes a salary of $21 per hour for knowledge workers
This is year two of the Knight News Challenge, a contest awarding as much as $5
million for innovative ideas using digital experiments to transform community
news.
The most robust definition (and the most commonly cited) seems to be found in Barbara Gray's Collaborating: Finding Common Ground for Multiparty Problems. She describes collaboration as "a process through which parties who see different aspects of a problem can constructively explore their differences and search for solutions that go beyond their own limited vision of what is possible."[5] In Collaborative Leadership, David Chrislip and Carl Larson offer a slightly different but also useful definition: "It is a mutually beneficial relationship between two or more parties who work toward common goals by sharing responsibility, authority, and accountability for achieving results."[6]
Best Practices
Learn how the pros achieve higher productivity through enhanced collaboration.
Attention Management - Reduce time wasted in the Inbox.
CC to Wiki - Get around the curse of Reply-to-All.
Collaborating on a non wiki page using a wiki page - Use the attachment feature to collaborate on presentation files, etc.
Designing Spaces - Key considerations for creating new spaces.
Developing a Public Blogging Strategy
Distributed Document Review
Gardening and Wiki gardening tips
Index Pages - create starting points for navigation around topics of interest.
Lightning Editing - how to co-edit a document with a collaborator
Securing buy-in - getting others to shift perspectives on wikis
Sparking participation at events
Using the workspace as a document repository
A good list of productivity features when used in conjunction with wikis. This is socialtext oriented
Best Practices
Learn how the pros achieve higher productivity through enhanced collaboration
>
.
>
Attention Management
> - Reduce time wasted in the Inbox
CC to Wiki
>
- Get around the curse of Reply-to-All.
>
Collaborating on a non wiki page using a wiki page
>
- Use the attachment feature to collaborate on presentation files, etc.
>
Designing Spaces
>
- Key considerations for creating new spaces.
>
Developing a Public Blogging Strategy
>
Distributed Document Review
>
Gardening
>
and
>
Wiki gardening tips
>
Index Pages
>
- create starting points for navigation around topics of interest.
>
Lightning Editing
>
- how to co-edit a document with a collaborator
>
Securing buy-in
>
- getting others to shift perspectives on wikis
>
Sparking participation at events
>
Using the workspace as a document repository
>
Doing a demo
Create tagging structures - Develop a core list of tags for your wiki
Wiki Structure - Create a page which outlines important elements of the wiki
Stop creating Word documents - The first rule of integrating wikis effectively
See also Bonnes Pratiques for a chart of best practices and French translations.
Learn how the pros achieve higher productivity through enhanced collaboration. * Attention Management - Reduce time wasted in the Inbox. * CC to Wiki - Get around the curse of Reply-to-All. * Collaborating on a non wiki page using a wiki page - Use the at
Work organizations increasingly adopt shared electronic databases. However, employees' unwillingness to contribute to shared resources undermines the utility of such technologies. Current research is limited to either a utilitarian or normative perspective. To advance understanding in this area, this study proposes a three-dimensional framework. It includes the utilitarian and normative perspectives as two complementary dimensions in addition to a third collaborative dimension. Based on this framework, the study identifies three key organizational processes and advances an additive model to predict employees' willingness to contribute to shared electronic databases. An empirical test was conducted to assess the model in a large manufacturing organization. The test showed both significant overall effects of the model and significant main effects of each predictor variable. The article will discuss the findings and address both theoretical and practical implications.
Key Words: information sharing • collective action • organizational knowledge • knowledge management • collaboration • communities of practice • identification
Vyew is a web-based conferencing and always-on collaboration platform that provides instant visual communication without the need for client downloads or installations.