Collaboration benefits is The Word around EJ HQ this month. We’ve been talking and thinking a lot about collaboration in all it’s glorious shapes and forms. Where would our popular culture be without Lennon and McCartney? Without the Cohen brothers? Without Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis? Collaboration is an open-ended concept, and one that is core to social business.
With so much of our time spent online, online collaboration has become the natural way of getting things done efficiently, with people we wouldn’t collaborate with normally. In fact online collaboration is so commonplace it has become a buzz word.
True and powerful collaboration is the result of a meeting of the minds; a meaningful and interactive pow-wow session that produces a desirable outcome. This can be achieved on and offline, but there’s evidence to suggest that in-person communication results in the most effective form of collaboration.
According to this infographic by Cisco, the top three motivations among customers, partners, and colleagues for in-person interactions include:
- Resolving major problems more efficiently.
- Generating long-term relationships.
- Resolving a problem or creating an opportunity quickly.
Other processes that have a high need for in-person collaboration are:
- Project kick-offs and initial meetings
- Brainstorming new ideas
- Coaching and training
All forms of collaboration are found within informed and clever integrated marketing strategies, but none more so than in-person and face-to-face. Focus groups and interviews are pivotal in discovering what consumers or stakeholders care about.
Reading facial expressions and listening closely to language is something that you can’t gain from online collaboration alone. Often not what is said, but the nuanced way in which it is delivered that explains a person’s true stance.
