Posts Tagged ‘collaboration’

The Economy of Collaboration 3.0

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

Image Credit: Jill Clardy | Edits under CC: Andrew Swenson

Original Image: Jill Clardy

Recently, Carlos Miceli argued that the future of collaboration is not in win-win transactions, but in a pay-it-forward type of interaction where one gives for the sake of giving and not for the sake of winning. Miceli states:

“The future of collaboration is ego-less….The real test comes when you have the opportunity to help someone with the previous knowledge that that person won’t be able to reciprocate. Paradoxically, the only way to do this consistently is to forget about the economic way of thinking.”

Seeing Collaboration 3.0 in Economic Terms

In economic terms, there are typically two types of exchange (Lapavistas, 2004):

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Job Descriptions Can Be Stupid

Friday, October 16th, 2009

I contend that people think, act, and express their passions at work in ways that don’t always fit into rigidly-defined department or job description boundaries:

  • Someone on the accounting staff may be a stud PHP programmer.
  • Someone on the web team may also be a phenomenal print designer.
  • Someone in marketing may have built the next killer app in his/her spare time.

But we’re often bound by our job descriptions, forced into completing only the tasks  we’re assigned in that proverbial big binder we all got on our first day. This, I think, is a shame.

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Microsoft, Yahoo, and Not Getting What You Want (in the short-term)

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

So it’s nearly official—Microsoft and Yahoo will partner for online search.  Yahoo will finally have the tech under the hood to make search meaningful, and Microsoft will finally have the sales force they need to gain ad sales (see ZDNet’s breakdown).

Of course, as AdAge and Marketing Pilgrim reported, neither partner will get exactly what they want—Yahoo wanted upfront payment and results promises, and Microsoft wanted to buy Yahoo.

All collaboration, whether it’s between businesses or within business departments, is like that. You don’t always get what you want in the short term.

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A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

I’ve always thought that all businesses, regardless of their size or market position, could benefit from some form of collaboration. People in business, especially small business, stand to gain by learning from and partnering with others. And that’s why I’m in love with ideaAnglers.com

(Full disclosure: I’ve been involved with ideaAnglers for a few weeks as a guide, but I’m not directly compensated by them, nor will I be in the future)

A brief case for collaboration

There’s value in the direct collaboration that an agency and a printer have. There’s value in the pricing model that’s structured so that when a client’s program is more successful, a vendor earns more (I make a more detailed argument here).

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