I had a super-neat day last week in Auckland, and one that illustrates perfectly what my work at Collaboration Success Advisors is all about. Let me share my excitement. I spent four hours talking with the CIO of a local firm about their current thinking around a new business and collaboration environment. The business systems piece (ie, ERP) was contextual information and wasn’t my focus–others were very deeply involved in that decision making process. However, the CIO was considering me as an independent advisor who could help them think through the collaboration piece.

Here was his question: How can we improve business profitability and performance by being more smart with collaboration technologies? Wow, what a gloriously nebulous question! That is, taking everything I now know about their business based on the multi-hour meeting today, plus my expertise in collaboration technologies, environments and applications, what are the business-enhancing things that could be done? This type of engagement is clearly up my alley: it’s about thought leadership, it’s about helping them be successful with collaboration technologies and approaches, it’s about taking a business-led approach to collaboration investments not a fan-boy technology-heavy one.

A couple of points of clarification. If both they and I decide to engage on this project, my role won’t be focused on technology delivery, application development, or any implementation. That’s not my speciality; there are many other providers in the market that do a much better job than me at such things. It’s business I say “no” to. However, I’ll be adding value as an advisor and analyst … seeking out business opportunities, quantifying those, and painting a picture of what could be done to improve the business through the use of various collaboration technologies and applications. Or to put it another way, I would be providing a vendor-neutral and implementation partner-neutral blueprint analyzing where the business can benefit from various collaboration initiatives. If we decide to go ahead, this greatly helps my client because they have a strategic orientation when looking at technologies and platforms. And it helps whatever vendor and implementation partners are involved in the future, because a set of clear business goals and outcomes are set out in advance of any engagement. Hopefully … if I do my job right … I’ll be able to create a set of common expectations for all those involved to rally around.

I’m jazzed about the opportunity.

So … this is the kind of work that I’m focused on going forward. Can I help you in your business with a project or initiative such as this?