"As an active listening partner in the quest to develop virtual consultancy businesses, I am pleased that you are asking the questions that pertain to individuals and small groups, as well as corporate ventures.
Here are some of my views on these issues:
1. I think the intent of online collaborative technologies is to answer the question, "how do I simulate the actual face-to-face (situation) intervention without expending huge resources to do it?"
I guess the ultimate collaboration experience will be when holograms meet in virtual rooms and share every kind of information (including visual cues like body language) in real time with total documentation and fuzzy logic solutions. Until then, we'll be trying out much less sexy stuff.
2. At one extreme, collaborative technology allows huge ventures to grow far beyond their natural boundaries of time and space. This leads to virtual consolidation and market dominance. At the other extreme, collaboration technology allows networking of smaller entities so that a small venture can offer virtual integration and system solutions to benefit teams with fewer resources.
3. When we focus on the ability of the smaller venture to be successful and offer high-value specialized solutions, the total market benefits. When IT infrastructures are intended solely to reduce costs and create shareholder value, the market creates greater polarity of the "haves vs have-nots".
So after having worked for 25 years in large organizations, my quest for several years is to develop ways for independent and small groups to network effectively and to create premium solutions to their customer needs.
Here are some of my assumptions:
1. There is a place for specialty consulting and consultants to support the ambitions of smaller organizations. Specialists should focus on solving problems and creating capability for clients to solve their own problems. Specialists' credibility grows through networks.
2. Mega consultancies tend to focus on long-term relationships which, if not careful, become parasitic over time (If we want to debate this one, we'll create a shared space and have at it. I tried not to over generalize.) Megas grow through influence, mainly via universities, governments, and other bureaucracies.
3. Large companies tend to network internally. Small companies tend to network externally (if at all). Internal networking suboptimizes creative tension, and necessarily, advancement (organizational defensive routines of large companies create oscillation). External networking optimizes creative tension, and MIGHT promote advancement, but definitely improves the potential for it.
So what do I want to accomplish with any of this technology? I want to provide for my clients solutions based on THEIR needs rather than MY capabilities.
To do this, I have to have technologies that reduce my dependence on beaurocracies and infrastructures that drain my resources without providing value for which I can be compensated. It always boils down to the return I get for my investment in my client, profit being the natural result of good input-process-outcome. ( By the way, profit can be any resource, not only money).
1. Any time I provide you value without a physical meeting, there is a chance I will get a better return on the investment I make with a client. Every order line requires a vast array of investment resources, and there is only one pay line for it.
2. Any time I can partner with someone to benefit a client, I am reducing my short-term ROI for the hope of offering a better solution and/or being involved in the partner's future ventures (Even if I know nothing about my partner's technology, designing an intervention with partnership in mind is an investment I am making in that partner).
3. Every time I learn a new technology, I have invested in that technology. As such, that technology should have as much utility as possible for me AND for my potential clients. If my collaborative technology increases my ability to solve customer problems and network productively, it is a win. If my technology becomes a limiting factor, I will eventually lose because I will (even subconsciously) promote my own agenda to make my own world easier. (I am constantly amazed at how many consultants walk into clients' offices with Apple or Linux mentality into Windows clients' world. Right or wrong, it creates an immediate barrier of "my needs vs your needs".)
4. The collaborative technology I use to network and bring value to clients is Groove. Why?
a. I got started in Groove before I knew what collaboration technology was about. I am an early adopter, and eventually learned how to make it work for small businesses.
b. Groove networking can be as unsophisticated as it needs to be. But the basic tools are good.
c. Because Groove is associated with Microsoft, it will probably stay usable (by average people like me) as it evolves, provided Ray Ozzie has instituted leadership succession.
d. Though it is no longer inexpensive, a network of people should be able to create reasonable functionality with only one "thought leader", and avoid large support costs. Groove allows me to do this.
e. Everyone in a shared space can have the full space, so you have built-in disaster recovery.
f. My client can use what I have created in Groove after I (or the network) have moved on.
g. The 90-day trial is a blessing.
5. What is missing?
a. I am not sophisticated enough to know where the technology is heading, but I only care about the outcome and my clients' needs, not the process to get there.
b. Broadband is a must.
c. Core technology competency is a must.
d. Collaboration software on the Windows platform needs to allow shared interactivity with any software, not just Microsoft office..
e. Customer needs and organization strategy must drive the acquisition of technology, not vice versa.
f. At the end of the day, the users have to invest something to get something.
You have influenced my thinking for a couple of years now, and I use your ideas as enablers of my own vision to help small businesses be successful.
Assuming you read this, thank you for investing your time in what I have been thinking about.
I tried to be clear, but this is a pure stream of consciousness writing, so there are probably gaps I don't see.
All the best.
Ray Symmes
Business Architect and Developer
(757) 393-0937
Image5, LLC
Unique Environments, LLC
www.image5.net"
