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A week ago Venessa Miemis shared a conversation where she spoke with @jazzmann91. In that conversation they talked about how to have The Conversation and some key points that we needed to take into consideration while participating in ‘The Conversation’. I suggested that it will be good to have all of the points treated there organized into a post so that we could go back and read when we were about to participate in ‘The Conversation.’
‘The Conversation’ is a debate where people discuss ideas around a topic, problem or area and try to make an impact and change the reality of that particular theme. Here’s the post that I hope will help us create a ecosystem for collaboration and will help us develop ideas a bit further.
The Internet is the ultimate human communication tool, yet communication needs certain guidelines to be really effective. In international business the cultural differences are studied in detail in the negotiation workshops. This is because communication is key to build open and honest relationships. In fact that is one of the core values of Zappos: “Build honest & open relationships with communication”.
The power of the web could be enhanced if communication could be made easy. The web is a way to accelerate serendipity, people from around the world will gather together and collaborate, something that was impossible some years go. This on-line social gatherings could help us form tribes of people willing to make a change. Take for example the myriad of collaboration tools created to help Haiti where people from different countries gathered and made projects work in days.
We’ve given a tool that can help us drive change faster. The Internet if used with the right purpose can help people gather and work towards a shared higher purpose. But for this awesomeness to happen we need to nurture and create long term trust relationships. The guidelines in this post were conceived so collaboration could flow.
These guidelines are often thought as obvious and you’ll probably think all of these points are, but it’s good to have it written down as a reference point in case we forget them. The human mind gets distracted or carried away easily and having guidelines could help reshape the way we think and in this case collaborate. Continue reading →