My latest CMSWire Article is on the kind of skills we need to focus on to collaborate successfully:
The way we currently think of working was formed by a command and control, industrial age of process, manufacturing and efficiencies of scale. Collaboration is a different model. It depends on people, not process. It depends on outstanding communication — because collaboration requires thinking and acting together. We are in an age where we have created technology that makes this easier, but we are still evolving our understanding of how best to do it. With this new way of work, comes a new set of critical skills.
What Needs to Change?
The industrial age catapulted us from horse-drawn carriages and agriculture to a magical time of electric lights, central heating, travel, effective medicine and consumer goods. It led to the digital age, which will (IMHO) rapidly gave way to the second enlightenment. An age where we are learning so fast that there is no meaningful difference between learning and acting. (John Seely-Brown calls this the Age of Constant Flux, and I so love it). It is an exuberant time — even for those of us who can’t possibly claim membership in Gen Y or Z.
Read the rest here, and tell me what you think.
Product Four 