Key drivers for some major companies to move workers back to the office to work face-to-face are the desire for innovation and collaboration. In an interesting approach to this modern dilemma, Glen Hiemstra points out in an article on Co.Exist that technology has been supporting long-distance collaboration since NASA was full force into the space race in the 1960s.
A study quoted in the article points out that some technologies are good for routine, practical, and generally impersonal task coordination. However, innovation relies on highly personal communication or technology that closely approximates that experience. Enterprise collaboration as we know it today may not solve the innovation needs of every company, but it provides a much more developed platform for linking disparate ideas and people than ever before.
Let’s focus on collaboration. What is the definition of collaboration? We like to define it as a recursive process with rapid back-and-forth between people. Keeping the human mind as the key element for the success of collaboration, it’s important to step back and remove technology from the equation. When building a digital workplace for your organization you must align how people work, with the best tools to achieve the results.
Imagine a global organization that is always pushing for innovation and collaboration where a staff member has a great idea at midnight. Now they can reach for their cellphone and post an idea on a corporate feed for others across the organization to be able to view. With a simple press of a button a wide variety of people are introduced to the idea and can meet face-to-face to discuss.
Innovation does more frequently happen in person than over technology, and workers seem to share this opinion. Only 5 percent of workers would prefer to collaborate on the phone and 23 percent online, with 72 percent preferring in-person collaboration, Hiemstra reports. And it’s not just generational: A majority of millennials also prefer in-person collaboration, and only 6 percent prefer collaborating via video conference or phone.
That’s all well and good, but keep in mind that technology supports the intellectual property that gets you to innovation. Technology plays a critical role in storing information so that it’s always available when needed. For instance, if a team member leaves, you don’t have to lose progress — information is readily available so that someone new to the organization can immediately get up to speed and feel connected.
Or, perhaps an idea or discussion that was tossed months or even years ago suddenly becomes relevant to a current project. You probably won’t have much luck finding those notes scribbled on a napkin or legal pad, but the right technology, especially with good information architecture, can make finding that type of information a snap.
Email and video conferencing may not be ideal for intense collaborative innovation, but neither is searching through filing cabinets. This suggests a two-pronged approach to innovation, as recommended by Hiemstra: Use technology for its convenience and usefulness for organizing and storing information, but don’t focus on it to the exclusion of face-to-face interaction.
Source: Co.Exist, November 2013
