Posted on

Have you discovered the power of Serendipitous Collaboration yet?

The most common approach to business collaboration (Planned Collaboration) involves prior analysis of the participants to try to identify shared interests in collaboration (e.g. as complementary players in a collaborative supply network). Another more radical approach (Serendipitous Collaboration) involves putting a random mix of companies in a room and seeing what develops. Guess what – Serendipitous Collaboration works really well provided you have a good process for uncovering synergies!

Continue reading “Have you discovered the power of Serendipitous Collaboration yet?”

Posted on

The Collaborative Opportunities Dashboard Tool

One of the hardest things for a group of companies to do is to find some quick-win low-risk area where they can build trust by working together BEFORE they embark on something major. The Collaborative Opportunities Dashboard Tool allows companies to quickly explore a dozen practical ways to work together with the goal of meaningful results in 12 weeks or less.

Continue reading “The Collaborative Opportunities Dashboard Tool”

Posted on

The Virtually Networked Enterprise: Letting small fish act big

In How To Innovate And Create New Business Opportunities When You Are A Small Fish: Here Comes The VEN, Robin Good and Ken Thompson argue that when you are a small fish, it may appear pretty difficult, if not altogether out of your reach, to be able to “network up” with other small firms to provide higher value services to major clients. But is it a real physical limitation or is it just that small companies lack a proven and effective business collaboration model – The Virtual Enterprise Network (VEN)?

Continue reading “The Virtually Networked Enterprise: Letting small fish act big”

Posted on

Management Flight Simulator for Virtual Business Networks

Leading a virtual business network requires different skills than leading a traditional team. Many of these skills are unfortunately very counter-intuitive due to the living, evolving nature of such networks. Discovering this ‘on the job’ is almost as crazy as training airline pilots without using flight simulators!

Continue reading “Management Flight Simulator for Virtual Business Networks”

Posted on

A Collaboration Maturity Model

A CMM for collaborative networks
Over the last year months a group of cluster facilitators and network coaches in Northern Ireland, including myself, have been working under the auspices of the Cluster Facilitators Forum, to try and develop a non-proprietary open model to guide how collaboration can develop between businesses through clusters and networks.

Continue reading “A Collaboration Maturity Model”

Posted on

Virtual teams, entrepreneurship and enterprise development

Virtual entrepreneurs inhabit the hidden spaces in and between enterprises
Virtual teams are not just for corporate projects – there are numerous forms of virtual network, enterprise, community and cluster. One of the most interesting areas for the virtual team is in new enterprise development and entrepreneurship. Bioteams Guest Article by Ray Symmes.

Continue reading “Virtual teams, entrepreneurship and enterprise development”