Are You Collaborating Enough?

Listening to Marketing Over Coffee on the way home, there was a very small section talking about GoogleDocs and how you can activate a form to collect data for you. It also made me think further on the question about how much we’re collaborating (or not collaborating) online.

We had to create a wiki for our social media class, and of course, wikis tell you how much (or little) someone edited the final output. It was noted that a handful of people contributed the majority of the content, which made our Professor, Michael Netzley, less than thrilled. I brought up the point that though a few people may have been the actual ones to enter the text, doesn’t mean the whole team did not collaborate together. Both sides are debatable, but that’s not the point.

I’m an assistant scout leader for my alma mater’s scout troop and every year around this time we have a camp. As with previous years, the emails pile up, meeting minutes get distributed, camp schedules get sent and changed and re-sent and re-changed until eventually, no one knows what in the world is going on anymore.

To solve this, I set up a wiki for the leaders. It’s a private wiki so I’m sorry I can’t share the link. I will however say that we’re using PBwiki, which I find to be superior to Wetpaint in terms of editing as well as help. But that aside, so far it’s been helping us keep track of personnel and manpower, topics of discussion, a couple of things to be noted, schedules, equipment lists and so on.

No more losing of minutes on paper, no more “can you send me the latest schedule? I can’t find it”. Everything is up there and updated. To the minute.

So why aren’t more of us doing this? Is it the challenge of working alone as Michael brings up? Or an unwillingness to change our styles of working?

Does it make sense for us to share our items on Google Reader (my shared items are here)? Or on del.icio.us? How about collaborating on Google Docs in the classroom? In the office?

To me the biggest problem is convincing the people you’re working with that it’s worth their while. In my scout case study, I knew the people who were primarily going to enter the data would be the younger adult leaders, while the older leaders would keep and eye on it from time to time. To both of these groups, you gotta speak their language.

To my peers, it was the idea of collaboration. To see everything in one place, to have links and for easy reading. To the senior leaders, it was the idea of streamlining information. Not losing paper, not having to distinguish whether schedule(final).doc is the true schedule or schedule(final)THISISTHEREALFINAL.doc is the true schedule.

So how’s collaboration working (or not working) for you? Are you using wikis regularly? Online document processors or software based? Is it a challenge convincing your classmates/colleagues to use it as well?

Icio Week 12(b) – Twitter Posts

Incredible week for Twitter news. Let’s get into it.

• If you’re tired of checking Twitter on the web or on your desktop application, try one of these 17 visualisations (my favourite is Twitter Vision)
• Twitter is for conversations. Here’s how you track them.
• Did we just witness a Twitter marriage proposal? (credit to Andre for the Tweet)
• Twitter is the tech water cooler. I have no doubt about this.
• Yet another post on how to “get” Twitter.
• 5 ways to have fun on Twitter. #4 – Using Twitter to meet new people is my favourite. Just entering “Singapore” on Tweetscan works wonders.

If you liked all that news but aren’t sure how to get started on Twitter, my handy guide called Twitter 201 is available:

• Part 1: What is Twitter & what uses does it have?
• Part 2: How Twitter can be useful & how to grow your network
• Part 3: Best Twitter apps & general advice

Icio Week 12(a)

So much good stuff this week I’m going to split Icio Week into two.

• Social Media Breakfast: Singapore. Don’t miss it! (Here’s the Facebook Event)
• Special NTU Post: 10 tactics to save your online reputation
• Can you believe 24% of Internet users can’t find Google?
• Second Life voted 2007’s most over-hyped trend. What’s your prediction for 2008?
• Empirical research into the successes of blogger outreach. Must read for anyone doing PR with new media in the future.
• Are you a non-profit organisation? Here are 10 ways to make social media work for you. (I just found out the Health Promotion Board is active in the social media space. I’m impressed!)
• Why many marketers struggle with social media. Do you?
• The customer is always right? Not always.

Icio Week 11

It’s been a busy week and I’ve yet to read 900+ of my feeds, but here’s the best of what I read this week:

• Do you understand what widgets are? Can you build a brand using widgets?
• Does social media work? Would you rather spend your money by generating promotions, or joining the conversation your consumers are having, with or without you?
• 10 sync tools you need. (I liked Google browser sync and ShiftD)
• The Times says girls & young women now most prolific web users. Are your marketing communications efforts taking advantage of this?
• The new “Me” generation. Again, are you taking advantage of this?
• Thinking of ads outside the tube. Using outdoor advertising to promote tv shows. I love it.

Icio Week 10

• A terrorist escaped from a Singaporean detention centre last week. Nabilah tells us how Facebook groups help to hunt him down, even if some are tongue in cheek.

• Want more subscriptions? Do what Chris Brogan does: Ask!

• Comments? Discussions? The debate continues

• Chris Clarke tells you why you should be an expert in some field to bring something special to the table. (Told you this guy only writes good stuff)

• Maybe we’re not facing Facebook fatigue? Statistics suggest there are still plenty of unique visitors on Facebook. Maybe it’s the early and/or late majority catching up?