Enterprise collaboration is finally gaining mainstream acceptance. In one indication of that, an article from The Huffington Post by Brian Honigman shows that people are starting to see how these tools impact the way we work every day and are realizing that collaboration tools can be a boon for innovation and productivity.
While this might seem like novel territory, think about it this way: Do you remember when PowerPoint was originally introduced? Everyone thought it was ridiculous and wondered why anyone would ever want to use it as a meeting tool. Now, it’s essentially mandatory and is taught in school. Collaboration tools are now in a similar position to where PowerPoint used to be.
Enterprise collaboration tools have been around for a long time — some for more than 10 years — but they’re now starting to gain mainstream acceptance. The benefits that social enterprise tools have brought are opening people’s eyes. Collaboration inherently involves bringing together different perspectives, teams and skills to accomplish something, whether it’s solving a particular business problem or designing a new project, and that’s where the real value is. Today’s collaboration tools just take some friction out of the process and allow collaboration to happen more efficiently and spontaneously, Honigman explains.
Enterprise collaboration tools allow people to develop innovative solutions quicker than with traditional, 100-percent synchronous meetings. For example, if someone wakes up at midnight with a great idea, they can put it on a newsfeed and allow others from around the world to add to the idea.
This means they’ll be sharing ideas with people who may never have been involved if the collaboration process relied on face-to-face meetings, phone calls or even email. The result is a blossoming string of thoughts and ideas never possible before, and the conversation will be preserved for future reference. That’s the power of enterprise collaboration.
Source: The Huffington Post, January 2014
