Process Communication and Collaboration

Communication & Collaboration tools Collaboration of people from different teams, institutions or companies Technology Transfer involves different persons: researchers, TT officers, lawyers, companies, … Inter- and intra-team collaboration needs usable tools One-way communication vs. Interactive communication tools Challenge: Implement tools that minimise collaboration efforts that are used without time consumption that are up to date 2

Process Communication & Collaboration Definitions Communication can be defined as the process of sending and receiving information among people. Shannon’s model is often described as the beginning of modern communication theory as it fits for interpersonal communication as well as to mass communication. Information source Destination Trans-mitter Receiver Channel Noise Adaption of Shannon’s Communication Process

Communication Information source: e.g. a person who creates a message. Message, sent by the information source and received by the destination. Transmitter: can be a medium (e.g. telephone) but also the sound of the voice in face-to-face communication Signal, which flows through a channel, e.g. electronic signals, radio waves, or words and pictures in a book. Channel: The most common channels are air, light, electricity, radio waves, paper, and postal systems. Noise, in the form of secondary signals that obscure or confuse the signal carried. Receiver: Originally, the receiving telephone instrument. In face to face communication a set of ears (sound) and eyes (gesture). In television, several layers of receiver, including an antenna and a television set. Destination: Presumably a person who consumes and processes the message. Source Destination Trans-mitter Re-ceiver Channel Noise

Collaboration Definition: Derived from the Latin word “collaborare” meaning: to work jointly with others Today: joint efforts and inputs from different people in a working environment Current trends in Collaboration: new internet technologies have created a new kind of “mass collaboration” Basis: improvements like high speed internet, wireless connection and web-based collaboration tools like wikis or blogs. Results: People from all over the world can efficiently communicate and share ideas One impressive example of this mass collaboration is the online “Wikipedia”, where thousands of people contributed to currently 14 billion articles in more than 260 languages.

Communication & collaboration for technology transfer process Key issue for technology transfer, especially between researchers (common research project) between researchers and TTO (evaluating transfer opportunities) between researchers and companies (evaluating cooperation possibilities). Communication & collaboration tools can be used to address the difficulty of Raising awareness for technology transfer topics within research community convincing researchers to come forward with their ideas/technologies and possibly considering starting up their own venture. There is a close connection of the topic “communication and collaboration” and the topic “Networking and clustering”

In Practice Tools for Collaboration MFG internal communication and collaboration tools consists of: MFG Intranet: central platform for internal information MFG InnovationWIKI: MFG knowledge pool CRM: Community Relationship Management tool Pidgin: instant messaging system 7

MFG knowledge management – Overview MFG Intranet central platform for relevant news used at least once a day Participation of everyone allowed and expected Community Relationship Management The linkage between contacts and documents or projects Active participation and up to date data MFG knowledge management Instant Messaging Tool Can reduce internal phone calls and emails with little content Widely accepted: about 2/3 of staff uses the instant messaging tool every day Consideration as optional tool, which can integrated into daily work according to his/her needs MFG InnovationWIKI knowledge pool for relevant topics and trends Currently more than 1.600 articles Used by every employee 8

In Practice Collaboration Setup for Research – CoCoNut CoCoNut = an internal IBBT project involving researchers from many domains & backgrounds (sociologists, economics, engineers, law researchers, mathematicians, etc.) “research the ways in which IBBT researchers work and interact, design the ideal collaboration/sharing environment to work efficiently while being geographically spread.” MyBBT = The implementation of the coconut findings “Smart, interactive, attractive collaboration & knowledge sharing platform for IBBT researchers and partners” 9

CoCoNUT – Idea It established was established, because IBBT is a decentrally structured organisation 900 researcher spread over 5 universities and many more campuses. Equal amount of research partners in industry There was no common work space before MyBBT Projects did have separate, closed collab websites This means: no knowledge sharing cross projects, no overview for senior people that participate in more than 1 project Hence: little or no tools for knowledge sharing. 10

CoCoNut – Impact Most added value for seniors, who need overview and dashboards When everybody uses the tool in the right way we should be able to: Provide a single source of info regarding IBBT projects to our researchers Have one single point of entry for all IBBT related questions that are not publically available Have clear processes and practices defined and documented Have a good way to communicate to the IBBT community, or segments of it. 11

Suggested Readings Don Tapscott, Anthony D. Williams: Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, 2006 Link to bibliography Link to code book Link to relevant websites