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Collaborating in a Social Era - Ideas, insights and models that inspire new ways of thinking about collaboration
There’s a disconnect between who we are as people and how we work together.
We have always been social creatures; few, if any, of us work without relying on contributions from our teammates and stakeholders. Yet the organisations we work within are making us dumb when it comes to collaboration and innovation.
Our organisations have been built around optimising highly repeata- ble processes - the industrial production line. But work is changing; work has changed. We are more often than not involved with barely repeatable processes, challenged to quickly mobilise teams to meet poorly defined but urgent challenges.
The solution isn’t simply flexible working and mobile devices, it’s a mindset shift about how we work and with whom we work. It starts with you. It starts with how you communicate, how you build and use your professional network, and how you collaborate with those within and without your designated team.
Oscar Berg tackles the big organisational problems and brings human scale solutions. Learn how the Collaboration Pyramid and the Five Principles of Collaborative Communication can transform your ways of working. Start now. Start with yourself. Bring your team along. You don’t need permission to improve your communication. Lead the transformation.
We have always been social creatures; few, if any, of us work without relying on contributions from our teammates and stakeholders. Yet the organisations we work within are making us dumb when it comes to collaboration and innovation.
Our organisations have been built around optimising highly repeata- ble processes - the industrial production line. But work is changing; work has changed. We are more often than not involved with barely repeatable processes, challenged to quickly mobilise teams to meet poorly defined but urgent challenges.
The solution isn’t simply flexible working and mobile devices, it’s a mindset shift about how we work and with whom we work. It starts with you. It starts with how you communicate, how you build and use your professional network, and how you collaborate with those within and without your designated team.
Oscar Berg tackles the big organisational problems and brings human scale solutions. Learn how the Collaboration Pyramid and the Five Principles of Collaborative Communication can transform your ways of working. Start now. Start with yourself. Bring your team along. You don’t need permission to improve your communication. Lead the transformation.
260 pages, ebook
First published August 31, 2015
20 people want to read
About the author
Oscar Berg
14 books4 followersOscar is an independent consultant helping organizations design and implement smarter ways of working using digital technology, creating empowering digital employee experiences. He can be hired as a strategic advisor and digital change leader.
Oscar has written three books on the topics of collaboration, the digital workplace and digitalization. He is frequently hired as keynote speaker at both public and inhouse conferences and events.
Oscar has written three books on the topics of collaboration, the digital workplace and digitalization. He is frequently hired as keynote speaker at both public and inhouse conferences and events.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 28, 2016
This book was not what I expected - in a good way. I noticed that I’ve dropped some facts about collaboration on my colleagues recently, afterwards realizing I got them from this book.
This book offers the digital perspective my favorite book on management; Managing the professional service firm, by David Maister, missed out on. I can recommend this book to anyone interested in the digital workplace, intranets or managing knowledge-workers.
This book offers the digital perspective my favorite book on management; Managing the professional service firm, by David Maister, missed out on. I can recommend this book to anyone interested in the digital workplace, intranets or managing knowledge-workers.
October 26, 2015
Oscar Berg has written an enlightening book about the connection between digital business transformation and collaborative knowledge work.
The book talks about the need for productive, responsive and innovative organizations in a fast changing world. There are other books highlighting new requirements on organizations brought about by digitization and higher customer expectations. What is unique about "Collaborating in a social era" is that Oscar Berg clearly describes how knowledge work and collaborative capabilities is at the centre of this required organizational transformation.
The last decades, many companies have spent plenty of time and effort optimizing business processes. A lot of IT investments have concerned automation of repetitive processes and transactions.
Knowledge work, especially the non-routine and more cognitively demanding type, has so far been largely neglected in business development and IT development efforts. It means that all the work that happens between processes and hierarchies, often more than 50% of the work in a typical business, has been seriously neglected.
The book explains the changing nature of work and the burdens that face knowledge workers such as the "tyranny of e-mail", digital waste and information overload causing stress and disengagement.
After presenting the context for working in a modern business, the author starts to guide the reader into constructive ways to face these challenges. One of the key models in the book, the "collaboration pyramid", illustrates how collaboration comes about. Many books about collaboration talk about formal projects and meetings. In a more responsive organization it is of critical importance that collaboration can happen spontaneously e.g. ad-hoc problem solving using professional networks. These types of social collaboration demand different supportive layers, including an open communication culture and flexible social technologies.
Clearly, it has been important for Oscar Berg to present the complex relationships between ways of working, culture and technology in a clear and understandable way.
The book also bridge the business and IT aspects of collaboration by providing a simple but powerful capability framework. The capabilities such as Find people and Share content are seen as generic building blocks that can be used in different collaborative situations. Thus, the framework becomes a great tool for driving improvements in digitally enabled new ways of working for teams, projects, communities, networks and similar.
To sum up, Oscar Berg has put together a clearly written and illustrated book, for anyone seriously interested in digital transformation, providing practical tools to analyse and improve knowledge work and collaborative practices.
The book talks about the need for productive, responsive and innovative organizations in a fast changing world. There are other books highlighting new requirements on organizations brought about by digitization and higher customer expectations. What is unique about "Collaborating in a social era" is that Oscar Berg clearly describes how knowledge work and collaborative capabilities is at the centre of this required organizational transformation.
The last decades, many companies have spent plenty of time and effort optimizing business processes. A lot of IT investments have concerned automation of repetitive processes and transactions.
Knowledge work, especially the non-routine and more cognitively demanding type, has so far been largely neglected in business development and IT development efforts. It means that all the work that happens between processes and hierarchies, often more than 50% of the work in a typical business, has been seriously neglected.
The book explains the changing nature of work and the burdens that face knowledge workers such as the "tyranny of e-mail", digital waste and information overload causing stress and disengagement.
After presenting the context for working in a modern business, the author starts to guide the reader into constructive ways to face these challenges. One of the key models in the book, the "collaboration pyramid", illustrates how collaboration comes about. Many books about collaboration talk about formal projects and meetings. In a more responsive organization it is of critical importance that collaboration can happen spontaneously e.g. ad-hoc problem solving using professional networks. These types of social collaboration demand different supportive layers, including an open communication culture and flexible social technologies.
Clearly, it has been important for Oscar Berg to present the complex relationships between ways of working, culture and technology in a clear and understandable way.
The book also bridge the business and IT aspects of collaboration by providing a simple but powerful capability framework. The capabilities such as Find people and Share content are seen as generic building blocks that can be used in different collaborative situations. Thus, the framework becomes a great tool for driving improvements in digitally enabled new ways of working for teams, projects, communities, networks and similar.
To sum up, Oscar Berg has put together a clearly written and illustrated book, for anyone seriously interested in digital transformation, providing practical tools to analyse and improve knowledge work and collaborative practices.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews