I used our new tagline, “time to collaborate,” in a Gennova meeting yesterday, not by way of introducing a taqline, but as a way to use it in conversation to see if it would stick. I like phrases that have several meanings. I can say, as we know, that it takes time to collaborate. Projects starting out need to allow time for team members to set out their norms for how they will work together, coordinating, sharing content, communicating, development community and context.

Two current clients are both facing corporate enterprise-wide mandates to become more collaborative. In this sense, time-to-collaborate has assumed a correlation with time-to-market, time-to-innovation, time-to-profit. How long it takes to make the organizational shift necessary to reflect changes is the time to collaborate. Of course that happens in incremental steps, starting “small but smart” as one client is saying.

This client is also very focused on making sure that the collaboration work (strategic communities of practice in this case) focuses on the right things (the right strategic elements). We are using ONA to ensure that once the right projects are identified, we can work on having the right people with the right connections.

Working on the right things, with the right people, at the right time. And making sure that people have time to collaborate.