Sunday | 7 September, 2008
10 Tips to Help Employees Collaborate
Collaboration has always been an essential part of the fabric of the Internet. E-mail, instant messaging, chat rooms, discussion groups and wikis are common collaborative elements that have matured over time
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Collaborative development environments will be the next "killer app" in software development. They'll make use of wikis, instant messaging, forums and online presence. But don't just barrel into it without thinking through the options
Collaboration has always been an essential part of the fabric of the Internet. E-mail, instant messaging, chat rooms, discussion groups and wikis are common collaborative elements that have matured over time. The rise of the Web as a natural extension of an individual's physical and daily world, the economic pull of outsourcing, the integration of third-party software, the use of home and remote offices, and the growth of strategic partnerships among organizations all contribute to the increasing distribution of teams and the need for better collaboration.
Collaborative development environments will be the next "killer app" in software development. We define a collaborative development environment as a virtual space where the stakeholders of a project - even if separated by time or space - can meet, share, brainstorm, negotiate, record and generally labour together to carry out some task. Whereas traditional development environments focus on improving the efficiencies of the individual developer, collaborative development environments focus on improving the efficiencies of the development team as a whole.
Collaboration has been used for years in other domains and there is much to be learned. Here is a top 10 list to keep in mind as the way we interact with one another continues to evolve.
- 1. The medium must fit the message. Before choosing how to collaborate, determine which collaboration mechanism is best. Whether it's a portal, wiki, instant messaging application or the use of virtual worlds such as Second Life, some methods are better served in collaborating with superiors, whereas less formal methods can be valuable in developing a rapport with peers.
- 2. Over communicating and including too many individuals can be as detrimental as under communicating and excluding team members. Collaboration should not serve as a vehicle to undermine any individual's position within the team.
- 3. "Present" does not mean available. Presence awareness features of instant messaging show whether a colleague is online, busy or out to lunch. But to be effective collaborators, we need to be mindful of how intrusive our communications are. A simple query to a colleague can determine his availability before asking numerous questions that he can't focus on.
- 4. Simplicity is key for productive collaboration. The collaboration method must make our jobs more efficient, not create more cycles of work. A discussion board can often help get the dialogue moving among a large team, but in some instances it is necessary to pull the discussion away to a smaller group for a final result.
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CIO Live Podcast #79: Brent D Taylor, author of The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires Part II 05 October, 2007 06:00:00
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CIO Live Podcast #78: Brent D Taylor, author of The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires 28 September, 2007 17:34:25
For his new book, The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires, social researcher Brent D Taylor spent four years of intensive research investigating the psychological make-up and backgrounds of some of the world's richest men and women, including IT luminaries Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs. Taylor discovered that, despite working in different industries and coming from different upbringings, they all have one thing in common -- they are all outsiders. - +
CIO Live Podcast #77: Panasonic Speeds Up Trans-Pacific File Transfers, Part III 21 September, 2007 07:00:00
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CIO Live Podcast #76: Panasonic Speeds Up Trans-Pacific File Transfers, Part II 14 September, 2007 07:00:00
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CIO Live Podcast #75: Panasonic Speeds Up Trans-Pacific File Transfers, Part I 07 September, 2007 07:00:05
Part one in our three-part special report from CIO's sister publication Network World in the US, as Paul Desmond reports from the Network World IT Roadmap Conference in Santa Clara, California. With development teams in the US and Japan, Panasonic needed a more efficient way to move very large files between the two locations. Iben Rodriguez, IT consultant for Panasonic Research and Development, explains how a storage-area network and virtual server technology helped speed up WAN performance.
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Information security governance: Centralized vs. distributed 05 September, 2008 10:15:00
Should security policies, procedures and processes be managed within a central body, or distributed at an individual level? You need to find the middle ground.The management of information risk has become a significant topic for all organizations, small and large alike. But for the large, multi-divisional organization, it poses the additional challenge of determining how to deploy an information security governance program among what are often disparate business units. Should the policies, procedures, and processes that define the program be developed and managed within a central, corporate body? Or perhaps responsibility would be better placed at the individual unit level? Is there a workable middle-ground? - +
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Ouch! Security pros' worst mistakes 04 September, 2008 08:05:00
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Security ROI: Fact or Fiction? 03 September, 2008 08:32:00
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Information Security and the Importance of Context 01 September, 2008 10:00:00
Those entrusted with information security must raise their contextual awarenessWhen the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was first created, it created a sudden need for tens of thousands of screeners. Getting a job as an airport screener was a pretty easy process. It seemed as though if you had a pulse, you were in. Jump forward to 2008 and becoming a screener is a bit harder as the TSA has instituted background checks, has upped the educational requirement to include a high school diploma or GED, and added other significant requirements.
Viva la Verticals! Key to Vendor Growth is Through Vertical Market Opportunities, Says IDC 05 September, 2008 11:05:00
F-Secure delivers fastest protection in the online world 04 September, 2008 16:50:00
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TANDBERG Begins Desktop Videoconferencing Roll-Out at New England Credit Union 03 September, 2008 16:01:00
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