or new product development—a
surprise, considering the importance
of these areas for future revenues and
strategic development.
finding 3
E-Mail Is Top
Collaboration Tool
Web 2.0 technologies get the
attention, but IT executives say
other collaboration technologies are
more valuable. Few IT executives
rank Web 2.0 technologies—
including blogs, RSS, social
networks, tagging and wikis—among
the most important collaboration
technologies. Instead, they place
great importance on old standbys
such as e-mail and telephony, the
most widely used collaboration tools,
and a number of other technologies
that have been overshadowed by
Web 2.0. Shared project management
systems, workflow systems, real-time
document collaboration tools and
knowledge management systems
are considered more important
than any Web 2.0 technology: They
are widely used by project teams
and, to a slightly lesser extent, by
co-workers engaged in business
processes. Prediction markets and
recommendation voting systems
are used rarely. IT executives may
think other technologies are more
important than Web 2.0 tools, but
employees clearly feel differently,
given how many use them—even
when IT organizations don’t provide
support. This remains a source of
tension between IT managers and
users. Adding Web 2.0 features to e-mail could provide a balance.
finding 4
Executives Underuse
Collaboration Tools
Culture and lack of training,
not technical problems or security, are the biggest roadblocks to
the use of collaborative technologies. Security is a concern for IT
executives, but it’s not the primary
obstacle—corporate culture and
inadequate training are. Lack of
executive support is an underlying issue.
Few senior executives surveyed use collaboration tools other than e-mail, telephony, and the shared calendars found
in Microsoft Outlook and other e-mail
systems. Of course, executives may not
need the same tools, or as many tools,
as project teams. But since corporate
culture is heavily influenced by executive behavior, and support for training
and infrastructure depends in part on
management buy-in, the lack of use of
these tools by executives has a dampening effect. When executives set an
example of collaboration, other collab-oration-friendly behaviors—providing
adequate training, encouraging experimentation and rewarding employees
who collaborate, for instance—are
more likely to emerge. CIOs who
want to increase collaboration among
employees must encourage executives
to set an example by embracing these
tools and technologies.
finding 5
Collaboration Isn’t a Youth
Movement
Older and overseas employees
have plenty to offer in terms of col-
laboration. Young people have a
reputation for being more comfortable working in groups and using
new technologies. The survey backs
that up: Employees 30 and younger
are the fastest to adopt collaboration technologies and have often
served as pioneers for new collaboration tools. Surprisingly, though,
it’s employees in their 30s and 40s,
not the 20-somethings, who are
most likely to use high-impact collaboration applications. Employees
older than 50 are rarely collaboration trendsetters, however. Anyone
leading a collaboration or emerging technology task force shouldn’t
assume the youngest employees have
the best insights into new technologies; they should include members
of the middle generation of workers,
who have the experience to see how
these technologies can be applied
to the workplace. Nor should they
overlook overseas workers: While
Americans often export innovative
collaboration practices overseas,
one in four companies have found
that their foreign-based workforce
can be a source of new ways to use
these technologies. Innovation in
collaboration is not an exclusively
American phenomenon. n
