Collaborative Participation Methods

Collaborative participation methods sound very formal and structured which is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when discussing collaboration.  However in order to encourage and maintain a level of participation across the collaborative network some structure is required to provide guidance and also to encourage and remind members to participate through methods for notification and and responding to the notification.  This structure provides and supports a fluid flow of communication across the partner network and this flow of communication provides the glue that holds the network together.  This communication must have a structure and even a schedule to ensure that all members are included and have the opportunity to easily and regularly participate.

Participation in a collaborative network is not difficult or require a lot of encouragement when the partner member is new because everything in the network is new and exciting and the partner will have the tendency to explore the network, build member relationships and discover opportunities.  This participation though loses its allure over time and especially within a changing business environment.  This drop in participation is not planned or even desired by the members, it simply drops off bit-by-bit and especially when the network communication requires the member to pull information.  So the first step is to define a method to push information to the members that also provides a method to respond.  This provides the foundation of the participation methods and also supports the necessary methods to frequently communication with the members.

The communication plans and the program development then utilize this framework to push the information to the members for response.  There are two stages of programs that must be supported by this communication plan;

1. New program development and planning - This includes encouraging partners to suggest new objectives for the community that will improve the value of the community, including brainstorming sessions and then initial objectives and requirements definitions.
2. Existing program maintenance and execution - This includes the execution and delivery of community objectives and programs, including activity execution, issue resolution, risk management, lessons learned to improve future programs.

You can see that the communication tools provide an important foundation for the participation and the execution of community objectives.  The success of the participation depends on this communication foundation that pushes information and pulls responses from the participants.  This communication may provide the glue and the continuous communication to provide the means to respond, however it still must be supported by virtual group sessions to build the member relationships.  The community depends on relationships and the value that these relationships deliver to the community members, the maintenance and development of these relationships depend on a combination of asynchronous communications (email, text, community web sites) and synchronous communications (virtual meetings, phone calls).  You cannot maintain a robust community without these two sides of the communications.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Collaborative Participation Platform

It is important to implement a platform and the methods to support the platform that will ensure that all of the network partners have the opportunity to participate and reap the value that can be provided by collaboration across the network.  This participation platform provides a standard method, or framework, for each of the partners in your network to participate as they see fit.  This platform also provides the framework and method to simplify the participation to encourage your partners to participate.  These are very important aspects that will help to encourage, or at least to remove the obstacles to your network partner participation.  

This ease of access and especially ease of execution are important aspects to the platform and more importantly to the partner participation.  There are way too many reasons for everyone to put off a task and especially when that task requires communication with external partners.  There are just too many distractions and pop-up priorities in everyone’s day to day life to support a cumbersome and complicated platform of collaboration.  This participation platform must not only be easy to access and easy to use but it must also become compulsive and pervasive to use.  This can be difficult with all of the influences and distractions that are pervasive in the day to day business activities.

It doesn’t really matter how valuable the results of the partnership if it is difficult for the partners to communicate and collaborate.  One of the reasons that the Apple iphone is so successful is the simplicity of the tool and the platform.  On the other hand, one of the draws of the Android is the open platform and ability to enhance the capabilities, and by the way, with each upgrade to the Android it becomes even more robust and collaborative.  Your collaborative participation network should incorporate the simplicity along with the open platform and ability to enhance the capabilities.  This combination of collaborative concepts along with ease of use and ease of customization through add on software will provide the platform that will encourage your network partners to participate and continue to return to the network.

Your partners want to participate and they want to engage with their collaborative counterparts and in the past this was a chore to execute.  The new capabilities of not only the connected Internet but also the collaborative tools and platforms address a great deal of these difficulties.  The opportunity, or challenge, now is to invest the initial time with your partners to identify and construct the platform based on the tools and concepts defined by the partners.  This initial investment will then pay off by encouraging new partners to join the network and also by retaining the initial partners to see out their investment in the platform.  Do not underestimate the power of that initial investment by your network partners.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Collaborative Network Changes

The collaborative network must maintain a constant rate of change in order to bring success and value to the partner networks.  I guess it can be compared to a shark, in that it must constantly be moving in order to succeed and survive.  All of the activities surrounding the support and maintenance of this network must be focused on supporting, maintaining and encouraging change.  The rate of change of a successful collaborative network is phenomenal especially when you consider the stamina required to sustain a constant rate of change and especially when you consider the discontinuous rate of change that is generated and supported by the collaborative network.

In order to overcome the challenge and difficulty to maintain this rate of change it is important to maintain a high level of interest and participation in the network partners.  I think that the key to this particular requirement is to maintain the interest and this must be done in two ways:

1. Provide a platform and method to deliver value to all of the participating partners.  This means that the partner must participate to ensure that the network understands and focuses on delivery of value.
2. Provide an easy and robust method to participate.  This means that there must be not only an outlet for participation but also the direct encouragement from other partner members to participate.  It is easy to participate when someone is reaching out to you and maintaining contact and encouragement.  It is also easy to not participate when your attention is drawn to other matters.

The network collaborative partners are being pummelled by discontinuous change and distractions in a manner and level that drives a shortened focus on any one change due to distractions and other demands.  In order to counter these demands, the collaborative network partners must maintain a level of interest to counteract the distractions.  The network must also realize that the participation for each individual partner will also change, increasing and decreasing due to outside demands.  The trick to maintaining the interest and participation is patience and perseverance from the network members.  This can only be successful through the implementation of a robust continuous improvement process within the network and in order to ensure the maintenance and success of this program there must be a champion that drives the program.

This champion can and should change based on the interest and availability of the champion.  In other words the champion must also change on a regular basis.  So the theme of change requires a robust method of change to support and flourish in the environment.  The reason that a collaborative network fails is disinterest and the failure to recognize and embrace the change.  

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?