Ingrid Koehler over at the Policy and Performance blog writes about how Web 2.0 is being used to support improvement initiatives in the local government sector, and in particular the positioning of (virtual) communities of practice for engaging with staff across the sector. This point is also emphasised by John Hayes, Director of Services at the IDeA.
A tangible example of the power of Web 2.0 for networking, collaboration and consultation will be evident in the forthcoming Customer Insight Online Conference, scheduled to run from 10th to 20th June 2008. What is an online conference? To quote:
An online conference, just like a ‘real life’ conference, is about getting people together to discuss a common interest and learn from each other. There are speakers, participants, panelists and discussions. It just takes place in an online platform and over a longer period of time, allowing people to dip in and out.
It’s greener – saving all that travel and paper, less expensive and many people find it more convenient and easier to engage with. The proceedings of this conference will be distilled into a learning report for practitioners and policy makers.
There will be a wealth of useful learning and an opportunity to chat with a range of colleagues through the medium of online discussion, video, photos and more. You do not have to be a technical wizard to join in. The conference platform is easy to use and throughout the two week period, we will send you regular round-ups to support your engagement and help you direct your own participation for maximum benefit.
If this is of interest to you, you’ll need to sign up for the event using the online registration form on the Communities of Practice website.
I highly recommend the recently published white paper – “Building a collaborative workspace” – by Shawn Callahan, Mark Shenck and Nancy White. The paper goes some way to redressing the balance between Web 2.0 technology solutions and the skills, processes and techniques required to ensure the technology is used effectively. I’ve blogged on this topic previously (It’s not the technology…its the people that matter), but I think the issue is very elegantly summarised by the authors of this paper as follows:-
“Today we all need to be collaboration superstars. The trouble is, collaboration is a skill and set of practices we are rarely taught. It’s something we learn on the job in a hit-or-miss fashion. Some people are naturals at it, but most of us are clueless.
Our challenge doesn’t stop there. An organisation’s ability to support collaboration is highly dependent on its own organisational culture. Some cultures foster collaboration while others stop it dead in its tracks.
To make matters worse, technology providers have convinced many organisations that they only need to purchase collaboration software to foster collaboration. There are many large organisations that have bought enterprise licences for products like IBM’s Collaboration Suite or Microsoft’s Solutions for Collaboration who are not getting good value for money, simply because people don’t know how to collaborate effectively or because their culture works against collaboration.Of course technology plays an important role in effective collaboration. We are not anti-technology. Rather we want to help redress the balance and shift the emphasis from merely thinking about collaboration technology to thinking about collaboration skills, practices, technology and supporting culture. Technology makes things possible; people collaborating makes it happen.
This paper has three parts. We start by briefly exploring what we mean by collaboration and why organisations and individuals should build their collaboration capability. Then, based on that understanding, we lay out a series of steps for developing a collaboration capability. We finish the paper with a simple test of your current collaboration capability.”
I think you’ll find this a very useful resource in this period of “Web 2.0 hype” by the leading technology vendors.
