Making Social Collaboration work

Collaboration in the Societal Web

So how does the Societal Web help to bring those collaborations about, and why is it important? The Societal Web enables businesses to operate in a connected way across many levels.  Marketing teams have immediate visibility of the other activity of collaborating businesses’ marketing teams across the whole of their Societal Web presence.  Sales teams can share information through collaborative products such as SalesForce.com or HighRise, enabling a consistent and joined-up approach to be taken, even when the sales apply to another business with which you are collaborating.  When groups come together to collaborate to provide a solution for a common customer, who performs the various sections of the normal operative processes of all of the businesses involved really doesn’t matter.  It’s perfectly possible for a business which has a very successful and experienced sales team to operate as the sales force for a number of companies in a group loose or tight that wants to provide collective services to a customer and thereby improve the service that they receive.

Power Groups

As an example, some ‘power groups’ often formed in networks as co-operative ventures ultimately, if they work well, becoming collaborative or even merging.  By ‘power group’ I mean a group who has the characteristics of the same target market but different products and services, where they’re focused on dealing with the needs of the same people but provide a different way of resolving the same problem or different solutions to different problems.  An example here might be in the wedding industry where businesses who print invitations and distribute those, graphic design companies who specialise in that area, wedding dress designers and manufacturers, and wedding ring manufacturers can all operate collectively and collaborate on aspects or all of the business to create a rounded solution to the ultimate customer; in this case those people who are getting married. Increasingly, there are some very effective collaborative tools appearing in the Societal Web, and a number of these tools have been discussed elsewhere on the blog.  We will continue to review products that fall into this category because our belief is that collaboration is simplified significantly by using appropriate tools amongst a group of businesses that are working together. Finding great power group partners is one clear strategy that can be applied to use of the Societal Web.