More collaboration, please.


There was an article that I saw a few weeks ago called Expert Predicts 6 Future Trends in Training. Being a sucker for predictions I went right ahead and I read it. I have to say that the six predictions were quite good - because we are already there, and we have been there for a while now.

We covered all of these issues when I took courses in my MBA program about three years ago in topics such as Knowledge Management. I have also experienced all of these points personally by being part of communities of practice such as MacOSX.com, HowardForums.com, and many, many other communities. The big thing here is the how. How does one effectively bring these into the corporation and into academia? How does one attain buy-in to get people to use the systems? There are many more hows here than I care to point a stick at. The main point is that these predictions are not predictions at all, but rather statements of where we're going (given proper leadership of course).

The main thing here is collaboration. What we need to do is collaborate. We need cross-functional units and teams with members that have knowledge of more than one subject area. All this stuff is not news to me (forgive me if I sound like a snob, it is not my intent), and it's not new to me because of my cross-disciplinary studies plus all the wonderful Subject Matter Experts that I've met and interacted with over the years. Right now we're all siloed so we can't effectively use what we know to get to where we need to be, and predictions of cool futures are made instead of working together to make a cool future and attainable present. We've got the tech, knowledge and the people now - no need to wait.

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