- Collaboration gets talked about a lot,
but what does it really mean?
A lot of different people have come up
with definitions which are more or less accurate.
The simplest definition comes straight
from the dictionary, to work jointly with others
or together especially in an intellectual endeavor.
Ah, I think this works, but let's refine it a little.
For our purposes, we're going to define
business collaboration as having the culture,
system, and tools in place to encourage
and enable individuals and teams within an enterprise
to work together and share information freely.
Business collaboration is not just tools,
although those are a key element.
For me, it's also having a mindset of sharing
and cooperation, and most importantly,
having a culture and leadership
that actively encourages and rewards it.
We'll touch on all of these elements in this course,
but let's start with the easy stuff, tools.
So let me ask, what are the different tools
of collaboration and how do they show up in the workplace?
Well here's my take on it, workplace collaboration tools
are a combination of these things,
file and document management, the ability for people
to work together on materials simultaneously
via co-editing functionality,
written conversational applications like email and chat,
telephone calls, and by extension,
mobile phone and video calling too,
digital communities and teams, places where people
can organize themselves around a common goal or interest,
I also wanna include integrated suites
like Microsoft Office 365, Google, or IBM Connections.
These include combinations of collaborative functionality
in an integrated package.
And finally, let's add in the various types
of hardware available today that boost
collaboration capabilities, things like
digital whiteboards, video enabled conference rooms,
and voice activated digital assistants.
It's quite a list isn't it?
We'll look at these different elements
in more detail during the videos in this
chapter of the course.