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Why collaboration is smashing the distance barrier

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By The Drum Team, Editorial

May 11, 2010 | 5 min read

Comment: Weber Shandwick North's Andy Poole tells us why new ways of collaboration mean distance is no longer a barrier for creative businesses.

An array of business leaders and opinions formers ‘met’ recently in Manchester to debate the idea of the 'death of distance', including the role digital technologies and virtual worlds play in breaking down the barriers of distance.

While the debate covered many interesting topics such as return on investment, establishing authenticity and cross-cultural cooperation, a key learning for connecting people irrespective of distance can be gleaned from the collaboration in organising the event.

Graphic and web design agency Corporation Pop and creative industry network NorthernNet worked together to stage the mixed reality Death of Distance event, bringing together a chair person – Brother’s Phil Jones – from the North West and experts from America, Australia and London via avatars in a virtual world and video conferencing.

Putting the content of the debate to one side, the format of the of the event showed to a live audience, a remote audience and an internet audience (via Twitter and live streaming) that the final nail is being hammered into distance’s coffin.

Digital technologies enable quicker, easier, real-time and more interactive communication, and the boundaries continue to be pushed to allow the larger transfer of information at even faster speeds.

Greater connectivity is eroding the constraints of distance and even time, but also runs the risk of creating a breeding ground for the exploitation of push communication and growth of silos. This poses a bigger challenge to connecting businesses than geographic or cultural boundaries. Although virtual worlds and avatars will help address this issue, this must be proceeded by collaboration to promote effective two way communication.

The Death of Distance event, and the digital technologies it showcased, was only made possible through regional, national and international collaboration. Without this shared working, the event would have remained a pipedream and businesses non-the-wiser to how virtual worlds can be used commercially to overcome the challenges of location and time.

Collaboration needs to extend beyond organising stand-out events. It must become a day-to-day working practice that effectively connects industries and people, and embraces digital technologies to harness their benefits as opposed to creating bad habits.

Today’s multitude of digital technologies enables people to be connected around the clock in almost any location across the globe. This has created a rise in push communication and an attitude that once a message is sent (or left) it has been received and the necessary action taken by the recipient. This can contribute to an individual approach to working, both within an organisation and externally in the marketplace that erodes shared thinking and interaction, creating silos that retain best and bad practice.

Businesses must encourage employees to collaborate with each other and their industry peers to avoid the limited or one-way flow of information.

Communication should not end with the message being sent, digital technologies should be used to drive conversation between different markets and companies which will promote more effective and efficient ways of working and drive innovation. This should extend across sectors, linking potential affiliates and competitors.

Collaboration between major competitors is often scarce and more of a rarity when the competitors are global market leaders.

Sometimes determined by Governments to avoid monopolies or driven by aggressive takeovers, collaboration tends to be less of a choice and more of a requirement. However, this week’s collaborative effort between Microsoft, Google and HTC signals the dawn of a new era for collaboration and sounds another death knell for the barriers of distance.

Mobile phone manufacturer HTC and Microsoft have signed a patent agreement for smartphones running Google’s Android. This has been viewed as a move that will counter Apple’s market leading iPhone. Whether or not this is the case, this level of collaboration promotes healthy competition and innovation. Furthermore, it has the potential to set precedence for the sharing of intellectual property and resolving IP infringements.

Distance is dying and becoming less of a consideration for businesses around the globe from Manchester to Mumbai. Digital technologies have helped facilitate this, but it is collaboration that will enable business to effectively reap the rewards of greater connectivity.

Andy Poole is a Digital Strategist Regions at PR agency Weber Shandwick North

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