Research Collaboration - Practical, Professional, Programmatic

"Most research is collaborative..." At least that's Sir Paul Nurse's view as presented on this Vanderbilt University video series. And who could disagree? Sharing ideas, information and resources enables intellectual capital growth, which means efficiency. But is the concept of collaboration too distant for most researchers? In other words, is it Practical, Professional and Programmatic?

Practical:

It is widely assumed that research collaboration is a good thing. Is it practical? One way to answer this question is through another question: if a researcher allows others to co-author a paper, does the original author get more ideas and commentary for improvement? If you believe so, post a comment and tell us a story. If you believe not, then the same goes for you. On SpineConnect, Spine Surgeons post their most difficult cases for review and collaboration. Our ResearchEdge groups foster a sense of collaboration by allowing surgeons, research coordinators and the sponsoring company access to the data for review. Again, all very practical...

Professional:

Is research collaboration professional? By this question, I'm more or less asking is it professional to "ask" for collaboration? Should collaboration be set up prior to, or is the research culture naturally collaborative? Big questions to consider, I'm sure. Inside our Communities of Practice, Surgeons set up their own peer-configured groups and invite members to join.

Programmatic:

Collaboration is a process, right? I'd say so! I did a Google search with the words *collaboration as a process* and over 43,000,000 sites were referenced. OK, so maybe this isn't that strong of evidence for you, but having read over the websites, I'd say that most collaboration experts are saying: our (trademarked) process works. But process is pragmatic. Why? Because it can be judged and improved on. How many process flows have you seen in your life? Although these get annoying and usually decay after the first minute they are shown, process maps do have a place. They allow you to get proagmmatic, becuase you can see the bumps and potential challenges.

Special thanks to Grzegorz for the great picture!

California - The Trip Pics

Well, it is official! I had my first "VACATION-STYLE" trip. This meant, no real mountain biking, climbing, or much activity at all... It was pumpkin all the time baby! We started our vacation in San Francisco and then up to Healdsburg, CA for some killer wine tasting.

Enjoy the pics...

The start of our wine tour. I highly suggest you visit the wineries on a bike.

Our tour lunch - time to get fat!

Christina at Boudin Bakery getting attacked by alligator bread!!!

Boudin lobster, pretty amazing that they do this with bread! Boudin bakery is on Fisherman's Wharf, a ZOO I hope to never return to.

We got in a killer hike at the Armstrong woods! The Colonel Armstrong tree is the largest...

At the top of the day hike. These trails were great!

I took this picture to highlight what most of my day diet was made of during my trip to wine Healdsburg, CA.

This was one of our first wine tasting events: Stephen and Walker. We had to go because they had my name in there...

The Bella winery was killer! I highly suggest you visit it. They actually had food pairings...

I was kind of surprised how wide the grapevine rows were. You could easily ride through them.

All for my buddy Justin Passalaqua... Except they spell this one with a "c".

I actually HATE dinner pics, so I tried to take this candid one while we were at a great local Healdsburg, CA restaurant called Zin.

Everyone has to have a crazy puppet in their pics, right?

The wine with my name on it!!!

Got to have a picture with pumpkin and my nose in it...

Paypal Looks to Crush Amazon

Paypal Looks to Crush Amazon’s Fledgling Payment Service With A New, Secret API

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NO MORE WORK - A Great Blog

Just stumbled on this blog post...

The author makes some interesting points, but most of the article is so thoroughly summed up in this brilliant writing here:

Liberals say we should end employment discrimination. I say we should end employment. Conservatives support right-to-work laws. Following Karl Marx's wayward son-in-law Paul Lafargue I support the right to be lazy. Leftists favor full employment. Like the surrealists—except that I'm not kidding—I favor full unemployment. Trotskyists agitate for permanent revolution. I agitate for permanent revelry.

The big question he asks is, is work killing us?

Palin: Sit Down And Shut Up!

Marketing Innovation

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Marketing Innovation

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Part 2 - Enterprise 2.0 - The Social Business - Are Your Customers Engaged

When you were a kid did your parents make you go to arts and crafts camp? Did you actually want to go? (assuming no one in their right mind would want to go). Fact: my Mom actually FORCED my sister and me to go to arts and crafts camp - never letting this one go! I can't believe I'm actually remembering this, but we had to learn the recorder - aarrgghhh. If it wasn't arts and craft camp, no doubt there was somewhere you didn't want to go that your Mom/Dad forced you to go to. This memory lives with us and, perhaps, that is when we first learned to do things our way. Funny that the internet, until web2.0 exploded, didn't allow us to do things our way. But that is in the past, the social web allows us to explore/do/process/transact/learn/interact/review/rate/engage/collaborate where WE WANT TO!

So why are businesses still PUSHING/FORCING people to their brand, on their terms?


The times have changed! Google Wave, FriendFeed, Facebook, LinkedIN, Communities of Practice, forums, Skype - THE SOCIAL WEB has changed our command and control centers. Gone is the dominance of people sitting infront of MS Outlook. Nope, we are interacting/tweeting/friending/Googling/Skype. We have multiple tabs open with social networks and applications running all the time. We interact on project management tools. Our day is filled with Facebooking, and it is a valuable task, actually. As a company, your #1 job is being there - having a place on the social web. Most importantly, you are helping your customers FIND VALUE IN YOUR PRODUCTS.

OK, will they accept your information?
Yes, but it has to be valuable!!!

The picture above best illustrates the core message of your social marketing strategy: YOU ADD VALUE, constantly. This isn't an easy task. It starts with changing the idea of that tired email marketing combined with a landing page thinking. This isn't how customers will interact with your brand. In the future, they will expect you to be where they are.

How do you accomplish this?

Make sense?
Probably not...

You need a guide through the social web. Starting up your social marketing platform might require a consultant (extanz.com is a good one). Dedicated and committed staffing is also important. But THE MOST important thing to consider is the strategic implications of this communication medium. You need to start now and find success!

Again, thanks to the HeadRush blog for the picture - if you ever start writing again, I will donate! Also, thanks to Extanz.com for teaching me so much about the social web!

Online Community Best Practices Final

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Online Community Best Practices Final

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Part 1 - Enterprise 2.0 - The Social Business - Are Your Customers Engaged

Post your ideas out there and people will find you... Is this the mantra of the future? Or is it "KNOWLEDGE FINDS YOU"? Are businesses NOT doing social marketing in danger of losing the stream of ideas? I'd argue they are.

Lately, I've been obsessed with the social web and how businesses, and even government, can benefit from an ever-changing and evolving internet. In fact, it is the evolution that makes the internet so wonderfully powerful; like us, it gets better the more interactions it has. And one very important evolution is how YOUR customers engage with you, or without you, in this powerful ecosystem! There are ways to benefit from the vast internet community, so don't through in the towel yet. In this post, my goal is to offer up a theory of practice that all companies should consider. After this blog, and the comments, I will also post a preso for review... (Hopefully, you'll add your comments and reactions, too...)

Practice 1 - Create An Application:

Ever watched someone use Google, or Facebook and smile? What you might be experiencing is joy, or just someone finding value via a web-based application. Part 1 of this series of blog posts is all about creating value for your customers via a web-based application (or service) that they find just valuable enough. Yes, it is true, you don't have to create the killer application, you have to create enough value so they like it.

What do I mean by application? I mean something that adds to the service or solution you provide - a widget, a special web page that only customers have access to, an open source database/application/code, a once-a-month report, a service... You offer your customers something that they LIKE to use that isn't challenging. Why would you offer this? It is all about brand stickiness...

The goal of the application is not to gain revenue (although you might be able to). Your objective is to keep them interested and coming back for more! The application is a connection; a touch point with your customers and even future customers. It is part 1 of your social marketing portfolio.

Credit card issuers do this very well, as do banks. All offer "online banking" as the application. In fact, just last night, I watched my wife try to log in to her credit card online banking account (not a good idea when a user can't log in by the way). After several attempts she even called the company (I would've given up by then). She logged in and right up front, was an offer for airline miles. What did she do? She clicked! Talk about a great example of THE HOOK. Now, imagine if she had found joy in the application, the issuer might've actually earned a sale. My point is the application is something that she was willing to fight for, it is ours! We have our password to that website and come hell or high water we will be able to access it. You need the same for your company - free or paid. But there's more... You need to wrap a community of application users around the application.

I'm going to save some of my community commentary for Practice 2 - Creating A Community of Practice (CoP), but like all good writers, I've got to wet your appetite. Let's just say other users need to know about other users. What's more, your community will tell you what they like, or don't like about your company and the application. You community approach is all about a deeper engagement - stay tuned...

Thanks to the great bloggers at HeadRush for the amazing picture - again, I wish they were still blogging!