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Implementing collaborative communities: Three case studies

Collaboration is not a new concept, and companies have no trouble imagining the gains to be had from collaborating within the firm, with suppliers and with customers: creativity, productivity, profits. The technology tools already exist to make it happen. But how do you get started? Three case studies from "Achieving Innovation through Collaboration," a symposium hosted by the W. P. Carey School's Center for Advancing Business through Information Technology, highlight collaboration technologies that are transforming how individuals, organizations and industries operate.

2008-06-04

Collaboration is not a new concept, and companies have no trouble imagining the gains to be had from collaborating within the firm, with suppliers and with customers: creativity, productivity, profits. The technology tools already exist to make it happen. But how do you get started? No surprise, collaboration can be approached from many different directions. The "Achieving Innovation through Collaboration" symposium hosted by the W. P. Carey School's Center for Advancing Business through Information Technology (CABIT) showcased a few. The following provides highlights of three ways that collaboration technologies are transforming how individuals, organizations and industries operate. Case study 1: Using Web 2.0 to bolster AAA membership CABIT Director Julie Smith David said that her center's current projects offer several examples of collaboration. One of them is a project for The American Accounting Association (AAA). The AAA, an international organization of 8,000 accounting academics, wants to grow to 15,000 members by 2015. The organization views international accounting faculty, and faculty from smaller and junior colleges as its best prospects, because both groups are currently underrepresented in the association. David learned through the AAA director that the group was investigating how collaboration technologies can help them reach and support this target group. When David learned of the AAA's strategic objectives, she explained that CABIT was doing work with Web 2.0 tools that might be able to contribute (Web 1.0 allows companies to display information going out to readers. Web 2.0 allows a two-way discussion and lets companies or nonprofits post their ideas for feedback.) Since that initial discussion, the AAA asked CABIT to help them develop a strategy for acquiring and implementing an online collaborative platform for their website. The result is the AAA Commons -- a social networking spot allowing new and current AAA members to make profiles, create groups of like-minded people, and share files, ideas and discussions. "It was a win-win. This is giving CABIT experience in being a part of a live rollout, and the AAA the chance to not have to start from scratch," David said. Last fall CABIT led a strategy and analysis session and worked with the AAA leadership team to identify and evaluate over 15 social networking platforms. Final platform selection will be made in early June, and the pilot implementations are planned for August. David added that the public site may change slightly with the new branding and graphical work that will take place, but members who log in will discover major changes with the collaborative space to share materials such as syllabi and conversations on topical news, trends or legislation impacting their field. The new platform should bolster membership -- a good thing because most AAA members pay their annual dues as part of the registration fee for their annual meeting. Schools often won't cover these expenses so faculty may be forced to drop their membership if they aren't receiving demonstrable value from the AAA. The new collaborative platform will ideally keep members engaged in the interim. For example, at smaller schools, there may be only one professor teaching a course; in these cases, these professors don't have anyone else to work with to improve their courses, but the AAA Commons social network should prove valuable. These faculty members will be able to download materials from others who are teaching similar courses in universities around the world. They'll be able to post questions and get responses. Additionally, in the longer run, it should even help members' careers. Once teachers post their materials, the system will track the number of times they're viewed and downloaded; users can rate the documents, and the author can get feedback and accolades from the association membership."This allows you to tell your boss, 'Hey, I have an international reputation. People use my material, download it, cite it and give me stars.' All of this gives a more concrete, documented way to endorse a good teacher's skills," David said. Case study 2: How does a platform help? Why not build a hive? John Kembel is co-founder and CEO of HiveLive, a company making and providing customer communities. Based in Boulder, Colorado, HiveLive sells software that enables companies to deploy custom-fit communities around people, their relationships and common knowledge. Kembel thinks that his new Web 2.0 building block (called a Hive) is excellent for enabling organizational collaboration. Hives can be configured as various community applications -- blogs, wikis, forums and FAQs -- and he sees three payoffs: Companies connect to customer communities to increase brand loyalty, connect to employee communities to bolster organizational intelligence and innovation and connect with partner communities to align goals and beef up profits. These communities have depth and are easily customized, allowing tighter bonds with their customers, partners and employees. "Most companies have a unique social thumbprint and will not fit within one of your boxes, so why not create one specifically for them?," Kembel said. Kembel showed the crowd of academics, MBAs and entrepreneurs a community created for his client, Serena Software. The community was built for developers working on business mashups. The website looks like any other, but includes within it blogs, wikis, forums and private areas. HiveLive's community platform hosts discussions. The "What is a mashup?" section covers the basics. (A mashup, by the way, is a web application combining data and/or functionality from more than one source.) There is a mashup exchange and a mashup library. "Customers of Serena Software get inside the onion and access to these things," Kembel said. Making a hive is easy, he added. The Serena Software site was built in three weeks. A new hive can be created by a template, or cloned from a platform already within the community. To illustrate, Kembel copied one on the Serena website, pasted it and renamed it. Everything transferred smoothly. Next he could have chosen who could participate in and shape his network. "I can post a new hive as easily as I can create a blog - - with a mouse and no calls to IT. Permissions to be added or deleted to the hive are respected in real time." Case Study 3: Defining the perfect order Collaboration isn't limited to activities between individuals within organizations. A recent CABIT project highlights how collaboration has the potential to transform how firms within an industry can work together to streamline their supply chain. This project is focused on helping the electronics industry to develop a methodology for trading partners to define and track supply chain activities, with the goal of improving operations and achieving the "perfect order" on a consistent basis. Their approach is based upon the perfect order definition developed by retailers who created a specific scorecard and applied it to all of their suppliers, David said. The electronics industry, however, wants more. First they want to look beyond sales and measure the perfect order throughout the supply chain. Second, they are recognizing that defining the perfect order will be different with different trading partners. In this research project, CABIT is working with the Electronics Industry Data Exchange, EIDX, a division of The Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA). The project is called the Perfect Order Task Force and began in February. EIDX wants to know what metrics make the most sense for their industry -- and for each trading partner relationship. For instance, a firm might need to collaborate very closely with its most important suppliers to maximize that relationship. These two firms may elect to measure several aspects of their planning, ordering, manufacturing, and distribution processes to determine how well every transaction is being executed. These metrics might include specific definitions of how to measure the number of times that the goods reach you at the "right time," the percentage of forecasts received as scheduled and the percentage of accurate documentation. To make this process robust, EIDX is exploring a methodology that captures the data and makes both data and conclusions available to both parties at the same time. This way they can measure whether the partnership is perfect, David explained. David is on the steering committee for the task force, bringing an academic and research perspective to the industry leaders. Her graduate student is gathering data on the success and failures of the perfect order, and the metrics that can contribute to this. "We can provide the methodological approach and steer it as it goes along," she said. Bottom Line:

• Collaborative technologies have the potential to transform how individuals, members, and organizations work together to produce value.
• As collaboration matures, collaboration platform vendors are emerging that provide robust environments to support collaboration efforts.
• HiveLive is a Boulder, Colorado-based company selling such software that lets companies deploy custom-fit communities around people, their relationships and common knowledge.
• The CEO and owner, John Kembel thinks that his new Web 2.0 building block (called a Hive,) is a great way to facilitate organizational collaboration.
• CABIT is assisting the American Accounting Association, a nonprofit group which wants its 7,000 membership to grow to 15,000 by 2015. To meet this goal, they are adding a collaborative online platform to their website that will allow faculty to engage by sharing ideas and resources such as syllabi, further strengthening the bond between AAA members.
• Another CABIT project is helping the electronics industry develop a "perfect order" methodology to enable better collaboration throughout its supply chain, with the goal of streamlining operations and improving the overall order quality.

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