What do you think?
Rate this book
The Future of Work #1
Reimagining Collaboration: Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and the Post-COVID World of Work
Winner: International Book Awards, Business, Communications/Public Relations
Winner: Axiom Awards, Business Technology (Silver)
Microsoft Teams. Slack. Zoom. Google Workspace.
Every day, hundreds of millions of people use these über-popular collaboration tools, but only in decidedly limited ways: as email and Skype replacements. Because these folks are merely scratching the surface of what these robust collaboration hubs can do, they fail to realize their massive benefits.
Blame ignorance, not malice. With rare exception, organizations, executives, and rank-and-file employees have historically worked in piecemeal fashions. They have lacked a holistic framework to fully understand the remarkable power of these applications, much less unleash them.
At least until now.
Reimagining Collaboration—the eleventh book from award-winning author and world-renowned collaboration expert Phil Simon—provides this essential gestalt. Simon introduces a bold new model of work. Ideal for HR professionals, knowledge workers, executives, remote workers, and small business owners, this timely, ambitious, and provocative book offers concrete tips for companies and groups on how to transform the way they work by embracing hubs and spokes.
Winner: Axiom Awards, Business Technology (Silver)
Microsoft Teams. Slack. Zoom. Google Workspace.
Every day, hundreds of millions of people use these über-popular collaboration tools, but only in decidedly limited ways: as email and Skype replacements. Because these folks are merely scratching the surface of what these robust collaboration hubs can do, they fail to realize their massive benefits.
Blame ignorance, not malice. With rare exception, organizations, executives, and rank-and-file employees have historically worked in piecemeal fashions. They have lacked a holistic framework to fully understand the remarkable power of these applications, much less unleash them.
At least until now.
Reimagining Collaboration—the eleventh book from award-winning author and world-renowned collaboration expert Phil Simon—provides this essential gestalt. Simon introduces a bold new model of work. Ideal for HR professionals, knowledge workers, executives, remote workers, and small business owners, this timely, ambitious, and provocative book offers concrete tips for companies and groups on how to transform the way they work by embracing hubs and spokes.
284 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2021
25 people are currently reading
183 people want to read
About the author
Phil Simon
28 books101 followersPhil Simon is a dynamic keynote speaker, world-renowned collaboration and technology authority, and advisor. He is the award-winning author of 14 non-fiction books, most recently The Nine: The Tectonic Forces Reshaping the Workplace.
He consults organizations on communications, collaboration, project management, and technology. His contributions have appeared in The Harvard Business Review, CNN, The New York Times, and many other popular media outlets. He also hosts the podcast Conversations About Collaboration.
He consults organizations on communications, collaboration, project management, and technology. His contributions have appeared in The Harvard Business Review, CNN, The New York Times, and many other popular media outlets. He also hosts the podcast Conversations About Collaboration.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
December 24, 2023
My office (like most offices) had Microsoft Teams added to our desktop during Covid. But except for VTCs we barely scratch the surface.
This book is a platform agnostic overview of internal collaboration hubs lie Teams, Slack,and Zoom.
I thought it was a great overview to help me envision what internal collaboration could look like.
The winning idea for me was “internal communication hubs” can largely replace email for internal communication and collaboration. That’s the big shiny promise of these apps and now I finally get the goal. Replace a no context inbox with contextualized and organized messages. If I can do this in three different ways next year I’ll be very happy.
This book is a platform agnostic overview of internal collaboration hubs lie Teams, Slack,and Zoom.
I thought it was a great overview to help me envision what internal collaboration could look like.
The winning idea for me was “internal communication hubs” can largely replace email for internal communication and collaboration. That’s the big shiny promise of these apps and now I finally get the goal. Replace a no context inbox with contextualized and organized messages. If I can do this in three different ways next year I’ll be very happy.
November 11, 2021
At my organization, we use Zoom, Teams, and Slack. But mostly we use email. So I read this to try and figure out how to best collaborate in the future. I wouldn't say this book answered all my questions, but it certainly helped me to ask better questions than I had been doing.
January 27, 2021
Everybody agrees communication and collaboration are critical components to a successful work environment. However, achieving it effectively is very elusive, and sort of a Holy Grail. Add to it the challenges imposed by an ever changing environment, including cultural, technical, financial, and socioeconomic impacts. With Reimagining Collaboration, Phil hit this challenge head on. Phil not only provides a model to improve collaboration, he also details how to achieve it. Phil’s vast knowledge in a multitude of technologies combined with his business acumen are in display in this practical guide to improve how teams can work more efficiently and effectively.
Read
May 13, 2022This is an amazingly thoughtful and insightful book by Phil Simon. It’s an easy read that explains how to use and integrate various tech platforms in order to increase efficiency and collaboration with colleagues and teammates. You will work more efficiently after reading this book. Phil Simon explains complicated concepts in simple ways by giving personal examples of his own successes and failures with technology. Each chapter begin with what you will learn and ends with a summary of what you should have learned, which is super helpful.
July 29, 2022
This is a book about collaboration in the new era of Zoom, Teams, Slack and other such tools – not that they are completely new, but the pandemic and enforced remote working caused a huge boom in usage and some permanent changes in the way people work together. Author Phil Simon is a US specialist in business communications, and associated with the Agile methodology of software development – quite appropriate for this book, since collaboration is at the heart of Agile.
There are a few themes here. Simon believes that organisations need strong collaboration in order to thrive, and personally I think that is spot on. He spends some time distinguishing between collaboration and other related but different things like communication (a pre-requisite but insufficient on its own), or co-operation which can be a passive relationship; people can co-operate without actually collaborating.
Despite all the this, the main topic of the part 1 of this book, I am not sure that Simon ever nails what collaboration really is, at least not in this book. There are many examples of what it is not, but it remains, in my mind, a bit elusive. I did like his metric of organizational health: “The ability to rally around a common vision, execute effectively, and create a culture of innovation.”
Simon does show a good understanding of the human factor in productivity. He talks about managers versus makers, and how managers feel the need to communicate often with many people, while makers need to reduce distraction and focus on a task; I am not sure if he had software development in mind but this is a good description of what developers need.
Part 2 then gets to the heart of the book: better collaboration through technology. The key concept Simon uses is what he calls a “collaboration hub,” meaning any of a number of tools which form a central internet-connected space where users can interact with one another. This includes what the author calls the big three, Slack, Teams and Zoom, as well as other applications such as Expensify or Canva.
The author is a user of Slack and of Google Docs and while he shows a commendable neutrality in the sense that he considers other tools such as Teams just as effective, even saying that “It’s fair to call the similarities around today’s internal collaboration hubs remarkable,” his greater depth of knowledge of the tools he mainly uses does show. There is really much more about Slack than about Teams, and that is something to be aware of. Teams users can still benefit from the book but less so than Slack users.
There is a big theme here though which is that the author considers email, especially internal email, a blocker to collaboration. He gives reasons, including that inboxes tend to die when an individual leaves the company; that email is gaffe-prone since a careless email, or a careless reply-all, cannot be unsent; and that emailing attachments like spreadsheets leads to multiple forks of the same data. In fact, toward the end of the book Simon remarks that “Effective, long-term collaboration cannot take place via email. Period.”
While I have some sympathy with this view, I think it is overdone. I reminded myself that one of the most successful collaborative projects of all time, the Linux kernel, is based on email lists.
Still, Simon is quite correct, a collaboration tool with channels for team members has lots of advantages over email, gathering all the communications in one spam-free place and making search much easier.
Part three of the book is called “moving from theory to practice” and contains lots of discussion about how organizations can move towards using collaboration hubs and what can go wrong. Then part four peeks into the future and envisages smarter collaboration hubs which use AI to book meetings for us, automatically transcribes meetings and sends automatic alerts to Slack channels.
There is plenty of wisdom though I could have done with more on practical questions about how to get the most from Slack or Teams. How many channels or Teams should you have? When should you have a video conference versus a message chat? Should we have our collaboration hubs always open or sign out sometimes? Who should be able to create a channel, or should anyone? And what more advanced or intricate features of the products are worthwhile?
I enjoyed Simon’s willingness to be blunt at times, as well as some amusing reflections like “In my consulting days, I often saw project managers call meetings essentially because they were bored.”
Towards the end of the book we also get this: “Just because the discussion or task takes place in a hub doesn’t mean that it’s truly collaborative.” I agree. What then is the magic that enables an organization to be collaborative? In the end it is corporate culture rather than tools that matter most. I think the author recognizes that, but after reading the book, I am still not clear about the best way to get to the collaborative culture to which we should aspire.
There are a few themes here. Simon believes that organisations need strong collaboration in order to thrive, and personally I think that is spot on. He spends some time distinguishing between collaboration and other related but different things like communication (a pre-requisite but insufficient on its own), or co-operation which can be a passive relationship; people can co-operate without actually collaborating.
Despite all the this, the main topic of the part 1 of this book, I am not sure that Simon ever nails what collaboration really is, at least not in this book. There are many examples of what it is not, but it remains, in my mind, a bit elusive. I did like his metric of organizational health: “The ability to rally around a common vision, execute effectively, and create a culture of innovation.”
Simon does show a good understanding of the human factor in productivity. He talks about managers versus makers, and how managers feel the need to communicate often with many people, while makers need to reduce distraction and focus on a task; I am not sure if he had software development in mind but this is a good description of what developers need.
Part 2 then gets to the heart of the book: better collaboration through technology. The key concept Simon uses is what he calls a “collaboration hub,” meaning any of a number of tools which form a central internet-connected space where users can interact with one another. This includes what the author calls the big three, Slack, Teams and Zoom, as well as other applications such as Expensify or Canva.
The author is a user of Slack and of Google Docs and while he shows a commendable neutrality in the sense that he considers other tools such as Teams just as effective, even saying that “It’s fair to call the similarities around today’s internal collaboration hubs remarkable,” his greater depth of knowledge of the tools he mainly uses does show. There is really much more about Slack than about Teams, and that is something to be aware of. Teams users can still benefit from the book but less so than Slack users.
There is a big theme here though which is that the author considers email, especially internal email, a blocker to collaboration. He gives reasons, including that inboxes tend to die when an individual leaves the company; that email is gaffe-prone since a careless email, or a careless reply-all, cannot be unsent; and that emailing attachments like spreadsheets leads to multiple forks of the same data. In fact, toward the end of the book Simon remarks that “Effective, long-term collaboration cannot take place via email. Period.”
While I have some sympathy with this view, I think it is overdone. I reminded myself that one of the most successful collaborative projects of all time, the Linux kernel, is based on email lists.
Still, Simon is quite correct, a collaboration tool with channels for team members has lots of advantages over email, gathering all the communications in one spam-free place and making search much easier.
Part three of the book is called “moving from theory to practice” and contains lots of discussion about how organizations can move towards using collaboration hubs and what can go wrong. Then part four peeks into the future and envisages smarter collaboration hubs which use AI to book meetings for us, automatically transcribes meetings and sends automatic alerts to Slack channels.
There is plenty of wisdom though I could have done with more on practical questions about how to get the most from Slack or Teams. How many channels or Teams should you have? When should you have a video conference versus a message chat? Should we have our collaboration hubs always open or sign out sometimes? Who should be able to create a channel, or should anyone? And what more advanced or intricate features of the products are worthwhile?
I enjoyed Simon’s willingness to be blunt at times, as well as some amusing reflections like “In my consulting days, I often saw project managers call meetings essentially because they were bored.”
Towards the end of the book we also get this: “Just because the discussion or task takes place in a hub doesn’t mean that it’s truly collaborative.” I agree. What then is the magic that enables an organization to be collaborative? In the end it is corporate culture rather than tools that matter most. I think the author recognizes that, but after reading the book, I am still not clear about the best way to get to the collaborative culture to which we should aspire.
July 18, 2021
Useful Context, Tips, and Workarounds - Having finished Zakaria’s “Ten Lessons for a Post Pandemic World” (see my review), I wanted to read a recent reference about current organizing practices when this title caught my eye. The idea of learning more about collaboration and use of tools such as Zoom during the pandemic and beyond was appealing.
While book offered some illumination, I was somewhat hampered by not being involved in currently using this collaborative technology, other than some periodic Zoom meetings. None the less, the text offered insights and I could see where it could be of considerably more meaning and value for an engaged user in a workplace using one of more of the applications covered. However, as I found out and as is mentioned below, there are a few “workarounds” available.
More specifically, the book consists of an Introduction and 16 chapters in IV parts. Namely, there is Part I: The Collaboration Imperative: (1) The Evolution of Collaboration, (2) Collaboration in Context, (3) The Benefits of Reimagining Collaboration, (4) Why Email Inhibits Collaboration; Part II: Better Collaboration Through Technology: (5) Reimagining Workplace Technology, (6) The Hub-Spoke Model of Collaboration, (7) How to Select an Internal Collaboration Hub, (8) Why Collaboration Hubs Can Disappoint; Part III: Moving From Theory to Practice: (9) Reviewing Implementation Strategies, (10) Reimagining Business Processes, (11) Collaboration Killers and How to Handle Them, (12)The Myths of Collaboration, (13) Reimagining Communication and Human Resources; Part IV: What Now? (14) Why Effective Collaboration Requires Lifelong Learning, (15) The Future of Collaboration, (16) Recommendations for Reimagining Collaboration. Finally, there are Conclusion and Parting Words, Thank-You, Suggested Reading, Acknowledgments, About the Author sections as well as an Index, and Endnotes.
Among my favorite parts were those where the author had been trying to advocate for the use of the collaborative tools within the university where he taught. The scenes reminded me of those from Julie Schumacher’s “The Shakespeare Requirement” (see my review) where the resistance to technology is palpable. I could only imagine the lack of preparedness to use such tools in academia when the pandemic struck. It is not surprising that the author is now working independently. The introduction of these tools not surprisingly seems to require the same change management practices used for packaged software and more recently for cloud computing (see my review of the PWC Change Team’s “Better Change” and Dignan’s “Brave New Work”).
In any case, other parts that stood out for me were where Simon provides examples regarding the utilization of Slack in book or journal publishing. Having that experience and tangibility of witnessing drafts passed around, reviewed and edited by various parties in various work sites made it easier to grasp these applications in action. It also made the case for their value more concrete and understandable.
The author’s suggestions regarding learning as well as future of work scenarios are also instructive and offer a few “workarounds.” For example, he advises (pp. 198-205) that “Knowledge work requires some degree of continuous learning—and the same principle applies to collaboration . . . become adept at these hubs and spokes while maintaining your sanity . . . watch a three- to five-minute video first . . . sign up for a free account by providing minimal information . . . you’re up and running, it’s time to experiment . . . Consistency is king . . . spend 15 minutes per day with a collaboration hub . . . Collaboration tools by definition don’t exist in a vacuum . . . If you can’t find a collaboration companion, no bother. Just create an additional free account, and use it to simulate real-world collaboration.”
As Simon speculates (p. 218), “. . . the world of work will never return to its pre-pandemic state. The future of work resembles the future of both healthcare and education: All three will be hybrid” (see my review of Manovich’s “Software Takes Command”). With that in mind, in seems wise that one heed his advice (p. 230) that “Equipped with this knowledge, you can open your mind to exciting and decidedly more collaborative ways of working. You can embrace these new possibilities. You can nudge your colleagues to do the same.”
While book offered some illumination, I was somewhat hampered by not being involved in currently using this collaborative technology, other than some periodic Zoom meetings. None the less, the text offered insights and I could see where it could be of considerably more meaning and value for an engaged user in a workplace using one of more of the applications covered. However, as I found out and as is mentioned below, there are a few “workarounds” available.
More specifically, the book consists of an Introduction and 16 chapters in IV parts. Namely, there is Part I: The Collaboration Imperative: (1) The Evolution of Collaboration, (2) Collaboration in Context, (3) The Benefits of Reimagining Collaboration, (4) Why Email Inhibits Collaboration; Part II: Better Collaboration Through Technology: (5) Reimagining Workplace Technology, (6) The Hub-Spoke Model of Collaboration, (7) How to Select an Internal Collaboration Hub, (8) Why Collaboration Hubs Can Disappoint; Part III: Moving From Theory to Practice: (9) Reviewing Implementation Strategies, (10) Reimagining Business Processes, (11) Collaboration Killers and How to Handle Them, (12)The Myths of Collaboration, (13) Reimagining Communication and Human Resources; Part IV: What Now? (14) Why Effective Collaboration Requires Lifelong Learning, (15) The Future of Collaboration, (16) Recommendations for Reimagining Collaboration. Finally, there are Conclusion and Parting Words, Thank-You, Suggested Reading, Acknowledgments, About the Author sections as well as an Index, and Endnotes.
Among my favorite parts were those where the author had been trying to advocate for the use of the collaborative tools within the university where he taught. The scenes reminded me of those from Julie Schumacher’s “The Shakespeare Requirement” (see my review) where the resistance to technology is palpable. I could only imagine the lack of preparedness to use such tools in academia when the pandemic struck. It is not surprising that the author is now working independently. The introduction of these tools not surprisingly seems to require the same change management practices used for packaged software and more recently for cloud computing (see my review of the PWC Change Team’s “Better Change” and Dignan’s “Brave New Work”).
In any case, other parts that stood out for me were where Simon provides examples regarding the utilization of Slack in book or journal publishing. Having that experience and tangibility of witnessing drafts passed around, reviewed and edited by various parties in various work sites made it easier to grasp these applications in action. It also made the case for their value more concrete and understandable.
The author’s suggestions regarding learning as well as future of work scenarios are also instructive and offer a few “workarounds.” For example, he advises (pp. 198-205) that “Knowledge work requires some degree of continuous learning—and the same principle applies to collaboration . . . become adept at these hubs and spokes while maintaining your sanity . . . watch a three- to five-minute video first . . . sign up for a free account by providing minimal information . . . you’re up and running, it’s time to experiment . . . Consistency is king . . . spend 15 minutes per day with a collaboration hub . . . Collaboration tools by definition don’t exist in a vacuum . . . If you can’t find a collaboration companion, no bother. Just create an additional free account, and use it to simulate real-world collaboration.”
As Simon speculates (p. 218), “. . . the world of work will never return to its pre-pandemic state. The future of work resembles the future of both healthcare and education: All three will be hybrid” (see my review of Manovich’s “Software Takes Command”). With that in mind, in seems wise that one heed his advice (p. 230) that “Equipped with this knowledge, you can open your mind to exciting and decidedly more collaborative ways of working. You can embrace these new possibilities. You can nudge your colleagues to do the same.”
March 25, 2021
Emerging technologies will make future collaboration hubs more intelligent and effective.
Many employees will not return to your offices full time in the post-pandemic work world. As hybrid working models emerge, they will need to accept collaboration hubs as part of their life.
To collaborate effectively, embrace lifelong learning.
Don’t assume you’re finished learning when you master using your organization’s chosen collaboration hub. Like other forms of knowledge work, collaboration calls for continuous learning. To embrace an attitude of lifelong learning, reflect on big-picture questions when choosing a collaboration hub. Ask why you want to learn a particular tool, or how its features might improve your employees’ lives.
Give yourself and your initial users permission to play. Learn from making mistakes as you experiment.
To avoid overwhelming people, set a healthy learning pace, but be consistent as you make learning these new tools part of your employees’ routine.
Be patient with different learning styles, and embrace your role as a change agent for more effective collaboration.
The pandemic didn’t fundamentally change how people collaborate, but it sped up the pace of change, accelerating the normalization of remote work.
The world of work is not returning to its pre-COVID-19 days. Effective remote work and the tools enabling it will become only more prevalent and critical.
First, people use new technologies to make routine tasks faster. Then, they start using it to accomplish new tasks. Users’ behavior changes gradually over time until, finally, these new technologies change how they work, and then change society and shape future technologies.
Email isn’t an effective collaboration tool and wasn’t designed to be one.
The collaboration hubs dominating the market today are Slack, Zoom and Microsoft Teams.
Remote collaboration will continue beyond that mark – and will keep growing – even after widespread coronavirus vaccinations.
However, no magic tool can handle all work-related tasks. Collaboration tools won’t replace your project management, productivity and enterprise platforms.
No new technology comes with a guarantee of success. Collaboration hubs can fail due to human error, misalignment with your culture or employee inflexibility. They work well only if people are willing to change and adopt them. To avoid inconsistencies, everyone must be committed to using these tools. Hold formal training sessions to communicate your company’s seriousness about embracing their use.
Reimagining collaboration sometimes entails altering your current business processes or organizational roles. For example, you might want to consider designating someone as Head of Remote Work to smooth your switch to collaboration hubs.
If your team members don’t stop relying on email to collaborate, you could even consider extreme measures, such as banning internal email or eliminating the reply-all button.
Many employees will not return to your offices full time in the post-pandemic work world. As hybrid working models emerge, they will need to accept collaboration hubs as part of their life.
To collaborate effectively, embrace lifelong learning.
Don’t assume you’re finished learning when you master using your organization’s chosen collaboration hub. Like other forms of knowledge work, collaboration calls for continuous learning. To embrace an attitude of lifelong learning, reflect on big-picture questions when choosing a collaboration hub. Ask why you want to learn a particular tool, or how its features might improve your employees’ lives.
Give yourself and your initial users permission to play. Learn from making mistakes as you experiment.
To avoid overwhelming people, set a healthy learning pace, but be consistent as you make learning these new tools part of your employees’ routine.
Be patient with different learning styles, and embrace your role as a change agent for more effective collaboration.
The pandemic didn’t fundamentally change how people collaborate, but it sped up the pace of change, accelerating the normalization of remote work.
The world of work is not returning to its pre-COVID-19 days. Effective remote work and the tools enabling it will become only more prevalent and critical.
First, people use new technologies to make routine tasks faster. Then, they start using it to accomplish new tasks. Users’ behavior changes gradually over time until, finally, these new technologies change how they work, and then change society and shape future technologies.
Email isn’t an effective collaboration tool and wasn’t designed to be one.
The collaboration hubs dominating the market today are Slack, Zoom and Microsoft Teams.
Remote collaboration will continue beyond that mark – and will keep growing – even after widespread coronavirus vaccinations.
However, no magic tool can handle all work-related tasks. Collaboration tools won’t replace your project management, productivity and enterprise platforms.
No new technology comes with a guarantee of success. Collaboration hubs can fail due to human error, misalignment with your culture or employee inflexibility. They work well only if people are willing to change and adopt them. To avoid inconsistencies, everyone must be committed to using these tools. Hold formal training sessions to communicate your company’s seriousness about embracing their use.
Reimagining collaboration sometimes entails altering your current business processes or organizational roles. For example, you might want to consider designating someone as Head of Remote Work to smooth your switch to collaboration hubs.
If your team members don’t stop relying on email to collaborate, you could even consider extreme measures, such as banning internal email or eliminating the reply-all button.
September 26, 2022
I selected this book for to report on for a graduate class in Engineering Management, and I'm very glad I did.
I work for a large engineering company that is doing a big marketing push for digital transformation - keep in mind that a lot of the drawings that are usually referenced by my team are the originals for the building, dating back to the 1960s. The majority of my team members are well over 50 years old, and all decided that Slack is essentially Facebook for work.
So naturally, when I found out that Teams will get a rollout next year, I wondered how this would affect the way our team collaborates. COVID-19 certainly changed the way the entire organization does business, and our management is in denial about everyone coming back to the office full-time (that's my opinion). I believe that we've had a monumental shift work as it was understood going into 2020, and hybrid work will be a primary part of standard business practices moving forward.
I appreciated the explanation of the structure of a modern collaborative work environment, which focused on the hub/spoke model. Slack, Zoom, Teams, or similar hub systems served as the collection and launching point for information, and the more information fed to it, the better it functions. For the most part, the book did a fine job of facilitating a hub/spoke model while being impartial to the hub systems currently available, trying and succeeding in presenting a model to be adopted that will hopefully stand the test of time until another black swan event causes everyone to reevaluate work practices again.
The book is structured into four main sections: the past (context), present collaborative landscape, adopting modern collaborative tools, and a look ahead, with each section flowing well from one to another. The eBook edition was arguably one of the better eBooks I've encountered in some time, leveraging hyperlinks, notations, and other features better than many of the eBooks I've read.
Overall, it's a great book to begin understanding where we are going with programs like Slack and Teams. Once I finish this class, I look forward to reading more works by Phil Simon, and seeing what his latest offering, Project Management in the Hybrid Workplace, has to offer.
I work for a large engineering company that is doing a big marketing push for digital transformation - keep in mind that a lot of the drawings that are usually referenced by my team are the originals for the building, dating back to the 1960s. The majority of my team members are well over 50 years old, and all decided that Slack is essentially Facebook for work.
So naturally, when I found out that Teams will get a rollout next year, I wondered how this would affect the way our team collaborates. COVID-19 certainly changed the way the entire organization does business, and our management is in denial about everyone coming back to the office full-time (that's my opinion). I believe that we've had a monumental shift work as it was understood going into 2020, and hybrid work will be a primary part of standard business practices moving forward.
I appreciated the explanation of the structure of a modern collaborative work environment, which focused on the hub/spoke model. Slack, Zoom, Teams, or similar hub systems served as the collection and launching point for information, and the more information fed to it, the better it functions. For the most part, the book did a fine job of facilitating a hub/spoke model while being impartial to the hub systems currently available, trying and succeeding in presenting a model to be adopted that will hopefully stand the test of time until another black swan event causes everyone to reevaluate work practices again.
The book is structured into four main sections: the past (context), present collaborative landscape, adopting modern collaborative tools, and a look ahead, with each section flowing well from one to another. The eBook edition was arguably one of the better eBooks I've encountered in some time, leveraging hyperlinks, notations, and other features better than many of the eBooks I've read.
Overall, it's a great book to begin understanding where we are going with programs like Slack and Teams. Once I finish this class, I look forward to reading more works by Phil Simon, and seeing what his latest offering, Project Management in the Hybrid Workplace, has to offer.
May 26, 2021
A helpful and easy-to-understand book about workplace collaboration: the author lays out a great plan through the chapters that provide useful and understandable information to help them learn about collaboration and what steps they can take to reimagine it. I think I learned a great deal myself and enjoyed reading the book. If you are in today's workplace, you can use this book to educate yourself and perhaps help your workplace.
May 9, 2022
I recommend this book to anyone whose workplace is increasingly relying on digital collaboration. More concrete than conceptual, this book includes many examples that illustrate how you might make digital collaboration work for your organization. My org is currently using Slack, and I came out of this book with two practical ideas I immediately applied (one didn’t work, but I did have success with the welcomebot app to welcome new members to my department’s channel). One of the most useful features of this book is at the beginning, when the author defines collaboration and adjacent terms. Too often these terms get interchanged and confusion ensues.
As a director of training, I appreciated the author’s pro-training stance and advocacy for lifelong learning, with a few seeder ideas for how to learn a new technology. Now if I can just get our top-level leadership to read this…
As a director of training, I appreciated the author’s pro-training stance and advocacy for lifelong learning, with a few seeder ideas for how to learn a new technology. Now if I can just get our top-level leadership to read this…
May 12, 2021
Really enjoyed this. Like so many people, I've been forced to work from home and recently accepted a position fully remote. Understanding what tools to use and how to use them is imperative in successful communication.
July 27, 2021
We are proud to announce that REIMAGINING COLLABORATION by Phil Simon has been honored with the B.R.A.G.Medallion (Book Readers Appreciation Group). It now joins the very select award-winning, reader-recommended books at indieBRAG.
May 7, 2021
Practical advice, backed up by data and experience. A great input for anyone designing a post Covid workplace.
March 24, 2021
Very thoughtful consideration of the ways contemporary tech tools can enable improved business collaboration. The hub-spoke metaphor to describe productivity software is a great insight. There are lots more contained in these pages.
August 17, 2022
I was really intrigued by this book, as my company has been distributed for way longer than just the pandemic. I thought of myself as pretty savvy with online collaboration. However, this book definitely taught me some things. I liked the idea of a hub and it made me reconsider my email usage. I also started to view Slack differently, as it is a record, and can always be searched.
Thank you NetGalley for my ARC!
Thank you NetGalley for my ARC!
September 6, 2023
Too much padding and way too many simple examples. I’m likely not the target audience. Could have been a 4 page article not a 200 page book.
May 7, 2021
Not a bad read. I thought it was a bit light. Not enough real substance to how to use the tools effectively. Just a lot of justification for using tools - hate to say that there wasn't much reimagining, but maybe that's because we already use Teams a lot.
However, there were some good nuggets. It wasn't an expensive book, and I enjoyed it.
However, there were some good nuggets. It wasn't an expensive book, and I enjoyed it.
December 14, 2021
Not as in depth as I was hoping but good reminders that email is not collaboration and to stay away from it as much as possible.
March 30, 2021
My highlights:
- [ ] In order to become proficient, you would have to break bad habits besides learning new techniques.
- [ ] Only by eschewing email, we can realize full potential of true collaboration
- [ ] Internal collaboration hubs like Teams
- [ ] Farming was mankind's earliest collaboration. It required synchronous collaboration
- [ ] Automattic is fully remote with 1200 employees. The fact is it runs is great. How do we know is effective? Sustainable?
- [ ] Note: Organizational muscle memory generates a mental model and it's impact on organizational capabilities.
- [ ] Roadmaps need to be clear first on "as-is" and "to-be" organizational mental models and next on any solutioning.
- [ ] Companies that didn't use distributed model will eventually extended into it for one reason or the other (expanding business, financial or operational reasons or employee retention)
- [ ] Chef, cook and waiter all have to work together in real-time for a guest to eat. Overall, a synchronous process.
- [ ] Zoom's ZApps connect to other LOB Apps
- [ ] Mio connects Microsoft Teams and Slack
- [ ] Encouraging people to embed their LOB Apps with Teams and port workflows so that you are reducing email traffic.
- [ ] Hire a Head of Remote Work
- [ ] Setup a water-cooler
- [ ] Setup company wide core hours
- [ ] Ban internal email
- [ ] Remove 'Reply All' button
- [ ] Ask with a poll on what they learned
- [ ] In order to become proficient, you would have to break bad habits besides learning new techniques.
- [ ] Only by eschewing email, we can realize full potential of true collaboration
- [ ] Internal collaboration hubs like Teams
- [ ] Farming was mankind's earliest collaboration. It required synchronous collaboration
- [ ] Automattic is fully remote with 1200 employees. The fact is it runs is great. How do we know is effective? Sustainable?
- [ ] Note: Organizational muscle memory generates a mental model and it's impact on organizational capabilities.
- [ ] Roadmaps need to be clear first on "as-is" and "to-be" organizational mental models and next on any solutioning.
- [ ] Companies that didn't use distributed model will eventually extended into it for one reason or the other (expanding business, financial or operational reasons or employee retention)
- [ ] Chef, cook and waiter all have to work together in real-time for a guest to eat. Overall, a synchronous process.
- [ ] Zoom's ZApps connect to other LOB Apps
- [ ] Mio connects Microsoft Teams and Slack
- [ ] Encouraging people to embed their LOB Apps with Teams and port workflows so that you are reducing email traffic.
- [ ] Hire a Head of Remote Work
- [ ] Setup a water-cooler
- [ ] Setup company wide core hours
- [ ] Ban internal email
- [ ] Remove 'Reply All' button
- [ ] Ask with a poll on what they learned
April 15, 2023
Following Covid and the introduction of remote working for those who were normally office based, we've all had to use various collaboration tools to improve the way we work together. Simon wants to take it one step further by advocating for collaboration tools to be used for creating a more productive and engaging work environment.
At the centre there needs to be a central hub (such as Slack or Microsoft Teams) where we communicate and share files, combined with ways to interact and communicate (such as Zoom or Google Meet) including video calls and making presentations.
By having everything saved in a central place, real-time conversations and sharing of files are easier.
Simon provides a number of tips on how to use collaboration tools effectively. He argues that it is important to create a culture of collaboration within the organisation, and to provide training (during paid working hours) on how to use the tools effectively.
I found this book to be informative and reassuring, as it echoed much of the way I and my team has been working since well before Covid. I also liked that it provides a number of practical tips that can be implemented immediately.
At the centre there needs to be a central hub (such as Slack or Microsoft Teams) where we communicate and share files, combined with ways to interact and communicate (such as Zoom or Google Meet) including video calls and making presentations.
By having everything saved in a central place, real-time conversations and sharing of files are easier.
Simon provides a number of tips on how to use collaboration tools effectively. He argues that it is important to create a culture of collaboration within the organisation, and to provide training (during paid working hours) on how to use the tools effectively.
I found this book to be informative and reassuring, as it echoed much of the way I and my team has been working since well before Covid. I also liked that it provides a number of practical tips that can be implemented immediately.
August 20, 2021
I read this title because it was picked for the Big Ideas Book Discussion. The discussion was done by Bonnie McKewen and Nancy Medema. They like to select titles that can recommended for a collection, for book clubs, or to inspire community conversations. On the back cover is states, "Phil Simon provides a clear framework to achieve a critical yet elusive goal: working together." His book is structured as follow: 1) The Collaboration Imperative, 2) Better Collaboration Through Technology, 3) Moving from Theory to Practice, 4) What Now? This hits on the theme -- work life is not the same as it was before COVID-19. Many people now want to work remotely, and there are tools to make this a reality. There are opportunities out there and a proactive business explores them before they are needed in a stress situation, like when COVID-19 forced us to make changes. I don't understand technology well but my take away is this...collaboration happens in the workplace but also can be done when people are working remotely.
February 17, 2023
This book is more for old people, who have no clue how modern communication apps work and for big sluggish companies, where email is used as communication tool. The author discusses why email sucks for collaboration and internal communication, the rise of new programs like Zoom, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Hangout and talks a lot about hub and spoke model. The mentioned tools, the author refers to as internal communication hubs because those tools allow people to connect to a wide variety of different apps, called spokes. Hubs act as the home-base for an organisation, department or even an employee.
Hubs and spokes comes from logistics and is a distribution method in which a centralized "hub" exists. Everything either originates in the hub or is sent to the hub for distribution to consumers.
Hubs and spokes comes from logistics and is a distribution method in which a centralized "hub" exists. Everything either originates in the hub or is sent to the hub for distribution to consumers.
August 26, 2022
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, collaboration has been made more difficult. Not just at the time with everyone working remotely, but since life has returned to normal with a blended mix.
Some companies offer flexible working, others entirely remote - making it challenging for collaboration to be as effective as it once was when everyone sat across a room from one another.
As a millennial working for a tech company, I have used various collaboration tools before, during, and following the pandemic. Whilst this book contained some helpful information, I feel it was aimed at those who had yet to dip their toe.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher Motion Publishing for an advance reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Some companies offer flexible working, others entirely remote - making it challenging for collaboration to be as effective as it once was when everyone sat across a room from one another.
As a millennial working for a tech company, I have used various collaboration tools before, during, and following the pandemic. Whilst this book contained some helpful information, I feel it was aimed at those who had yet to dip their toe.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher Motion Publishing for an advance reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
August 14, 2021
I listened to this book on audible and don't recommend it. It has several visual aids and and I obviously was not able to see any of them. Working in government, this book helped me realize how far behind the technology curve we are. While I won't be able to get the government to adapt these collaboration tools on my own, when it does I hope to use the knowledge learned in this book to help promote change.
October 1, 2022
The material presented is interesting enough to experiment applying it.
However the argument for abandoning email does feel like it has enough solid evidence, instead is just labeled as “antiquated”. I was hoping to see a crisp list of pros and cons and why collaboration hubs won’t just repeat the same mistakes.
Also the topic of requiring company policies to allow spokes when adopting hubs is not really addressed. That seems to be a key beyond just the hubs.
However the argument for abandoning email does feel like it has enough solid evidence, instead is just labeled as “antiquated”. I was hoping to see a crisp list of pros and cons and why collaboration hubs won’t just repeat the same mistakes.
Also the topic of requiring company policies to allow spokes when adopting hubs is not really addressed. That seems to be a key beyond just the hubs.
August 12, 2023
Light and easy read about why it's so important for us to embrace collaboration hubs.
I got the point by Chapter 2 but slogged through to the end.
I got the point by Chapter 2 but slogged through to the end.
November 14, 2023
True, but useless. This book could better have been titled “Remote Collaboration for Dummies” – boring, superficial, and sometimes naive: written during the Covid19-pandemic, its predictions no longer hold up afterwards: WFH is no longer a given, we have to fight for it.
Yes, using remote tools is one way to improve collaboration to the company’s advantage, but my suggestion is: read Remote, Not Distant instead, a much better book on how distributed teams can and should collaborate.
Yes, using remote tools is one way to improve collaboration to the company’s advantage, but my suggestion is: read Remote, Not Distant instead, a much better book on how distributed teams can and should collaborate.
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews