Using Digital Tools to Promote Collaboration and Hybrid Work
Mary Davis Kaplan
Mary Kaplan
Julie and Billy, thanks so much for spending this time with me and going over your experience when it comes to collaboration! I’d love to start by getting to know each of your backgrounds a bit better, and how you found yourselves in your current role. Julie, could you tell me when and how you’ve seen peer-to-peer collaboration through digital tools making real life impacts?
Julie Blutstein
Yes, most definitely. I was in Financial Services for over a decade, managing online communities. This is when I was introduced to and fell in love with online communities as part of a business landscape; it’s where I felt like I found my people. I’ve been a part of online communities since the 1990s, before the word “blog” even existed! Collaboration through online communities has become a mix of personal and professional passions. Being able to see the asynchronous communication, and how that can really be an effective means of collaborating and connecting with each other, regardless of where you physically are. It breaks down organizational silos and provides a shared space for conversation, innovation, and retention of durable knowledge.
Mary Kaplan
That’s super interesting, thank you. And Billy, what about you?
Billy Volpone
I sort of fell into this market to be honest. I studied a mix of psychology and communications in university, which are really great complements to each other. I spent a lot of time thinking about and studying “why do we communicate in the ways that we do, what are our motivations behind communication and connection?” And when I started my career at Jive Software I was working in both the intranet and extranet markets, helping companies to improve their collaboration strategies internally with their employees, and externally with their partners and customers.
One of my favorite examples for an intranet, and a particularly relevant example in today’s climate, was at a large financial institution. This company knew that the best companies treat their employees like their customers - with a really high bar of expectations when it comes to communication. If you treat your employees like your customers, you are recognizing that employees aren’t a captive audience, and therefore you need to be very intentional in your communication strategies, particularly in the tools you ask them to use. Because of this, they invested in the right digital tools to promote communication and collaboration, and they instituted a culture of working out loud.
Mary Kaplan
Working out loud, that’s an interesting concept. Could you unpack that for me?
Billy Volpone
Certainly! Working out loud means that the company has made an intentional effort to democratize collaboration, and to promote having conversations and team collaboration in an open forum, so that everyone at the company can read, participate, and learn from each other. A lot of the time, with digital communication and collaboration tools, employees are asked to login for really important news and information, but they return to the platform, and they stay longer in the platform, for the conversations with each other. It’s all about human connection, even in a digital world.
Mary Kaplan
So you both work from home, and have for a while, right? Can you talk to me a little bit about how digital collaboration tools have impacted how each of you have been onboarded in different roles, and also your team building experiences?
Julie Blutstein
Yes, you’re right. I had a flexible role at my previous company, before Covid-19, where I could work from home parts of the week. Personally the biggest benefits I’ve seen for digital collaboration when it comes to onboarding into a new role, fully remote, has been the connection without borders. One of the great things about LumApps is that it’s a global company, and we can make connections with our colleagues all over the world, and learn from each other and share with each other.
Billy Volpone
I can second that Julie, great point. I’ve been working from home for 10+ years. And I would say, especially when it comes to onboarding in a new company, or even just changing roles, having a digital collaboration tool collapses the time it takes to get answers to questions you might have, and it certainly helps teams work together better, by alleviating silos of information, and generally making knowledge more accessible.
Effective collaboration = making knowledge more accessible by alleviating silos of information
Mary Kaplan
Thank you both so much, it’s clear to see why you’re each so passionate about this field. You’ve seen the value it brought to your personal lives!
Within the next few months, we will have some new functionalities coming to LumApps communities. The notion of autonomous administration is the big driver of these key new features. To us, autonomous administration means: allowing team managers, and local managers, to really simply curate and create their communities with all the necessary resources: like an adaptable navigation and structure, embedded tools like Calendar and Drive, links to content, news, and information, and the use of videos. Local managers can leverage these communities to promote sharing, collaboration and engagement with their teams.
I’d love to know from each of you, what you’re most excited about, and where you see the best value for customers when they use these new features?
Billy Volpone
Sure! I’m really excited about these new functionalities. Of course I work in sales, so my first thought goes to the use case of “deal rooms” where you can manage the people per each active opportunity, you can connect resources like your Word docs for notes, and your spreadsheets, and you can ask and answer questions with the entire team. It doesn’t have to be sales specific, it can really work for any team, or any project.
Likewise, when I think about corporate-wide initiatives, around diversity and inclusion, sustainability, regional health and safety, communities really provide for a give and take experience. Each employee needs to receive information to be able to participate in the initiative, but each employee is also encouraged to share what they’ve been doing locally in support of the initiative.
Julie Blutstein
Definitely agree with you on those examples, Billy. Autonomous administration is really powerful because it allows for collaboration without the need for any IT or any administrative involvement. It really empowers each manager to set up what they need for their teams. I think these new features are an excellent match for the top down aspects of LumApps as well. Another great example that I think every customer could benefit from is a content creator community. It doesn’t matter where you work, or what team you’re on, if you create content in LumApps, you can join this community to learn tips and tricks, strategies, and best practices from other content creators.
Mary Kaplan
Those are great ideas, thanks so much for sharing. I’d like to end with a few key strategies from you both for increasing digital collaboration. What do you tell your customers and potential customers if they are looking to increase digital employee collaboration?
Julie Blutstein
I think for companies where communities and digital collaboration are relatively new, don’t position yourself as “the fun killer” - you’re not here to monitor what people share. You’re really here to use these communities as an extension of your workplace, as an extension of your corporate culture. Your digital communities are as important as your physical offices, especially now. These communities can be spaces where relationships and trust are created and strengthened.
Billy Volpone
If you’re a company that’s a little scared to roll out something like communities, remember that these conversations between employees are happening already, somewhere, so it’s better to give your employees the tools to have these conversations in an appropriate manner. It’s acceptable and encouraged to set policies and terms and conditions in your platform, and to have guidelines for each community, letting employees know what it means to collaborate at your company.
Mary Kaplan
Thank you both so much, it’s been a pleasure speaking with you and getting to know more about both of you.
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