Collaboration Community of Practice (CCoP)

Objective of Meeting

The objective of Friday’s session on the CCoP was to:

• Increase awareness of the CCoP, introduce them to the Wiki and encourage them to add their own contributions on tools and techniques for collaboration
• Conduct roundtable discussion on best practices for virtual and web meeting
• Brainstorm with the participants on what other areas they would like to see covered on the Wiki or at future events, and what might make this a better community

Summary

Sally Long provided an overview of the objectives of the CCoP and a quick walk-through of the CCoP Wiki so that folks could get a better idea of what is offered there.

She categorized the community as a virtual place where individuals passionate about collaboration can come together to share their vision, knowledge, and expertise in standards, best practices, collaboration tools, and principles. We hope that the Community will also offer ample opportunity to build strategic relationships with other thought and business leaders interested in successful collaboration.

The CCoP objective is to foster a community that allows individuals and organizations passionate about collaboration to:

• Share their vision, knowledge, and expertise in standards, best practices, collaboration tools, techniques, and principles

• Learn from the knowledge and experience of others

• Facilitate the adoption or creation of best-of-breed standards and best practices in collaboration

• Facilitate market adoption activities to promote the use of those collaboration standards and best practices

Sally provided a brief walkthrough of the Wiki demonstrating the following breakdown and showing some of the valuable contributions that exist, particularly in the Tools and Techniques section:

• Building the Community for Social Networking Connections, Strategic Planning, and Upcoming Events

• Tools-and-Techniques for IT Collaboration Tools, Practices, Policy, and Procedures

• Possibilities for Collaboration Standards, Best Practices, or Certification

Sally encouraged everyone to visit the CCoP Wiki, as it is open to the public and all that is required to edit and contribute is to register by clicking on the registration link on the start page of the Wiki.  It was noted that contributions to the Wiki are governed by the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License, an explanation of which is available from the CCoP start page.

Dave Lounsbury led the Round Table Discussion on virtual/web meeting best practices, with support from Andrew Josey and active participation from all of the attendees.

Dave’s presentation consisted of a walk-through of the CCoP article, which he contributed.  Please see here for a full description of what was covered 

Finally, there was a brainstorming session with the attendees on improvement points and what areas they would like to see covered in the CCoP Wiki and at future events.  Please see the Outputs section below for the results. 

Outputs

The participants were all very enthusiastic about the CCoP and quite forthcoming about what areas they would like to see covered.  Some folks based on their expertise felt they might be able to contribute articles. The input is captured below:

Improvement points:

• Revise the structure of the Wiki slightly so that Collaboration Tools and Techniques is the "center of gravity"
• Replace the generic logo with one that is significant and trademarked
• Add entry for CCoP to Wikipedia
• Consider a Search Engine Optimization effort for CCoP
• Encourage CCoP practitioners to link to the CCoP as links from other organizations' websites are one of the best ways to assure your site pops-up in searches
• See how we can utilize The Open Group RSS Feed to help promote The Open Group activities like the CCoP more effectively

Additional areas of tools and techniques:

• Policy and practices on setting up ad hoc meetings
• The appropriate use of tools such as Skype, VOIP, telephones as the proper tool for communication and in which circumstances
• Appropriate use of instant messaging
• Cross-time zone collaboration
• Learn more about sharing desktops for when it is appropriate
• Facilitation skills
• Online categorization of content (e.g., UDEF)
• How to setup and record web conferences
• How to manage large conference calls effectively
• Calendar management and techniques for collaboration
• Best format for meeting minutes – and techniques on summarizing quickly, correctly, and in real time
• Learn more about RSS feeds and how to set them up

Next Steps

Dave, Sally, and Andrew to revisit improvement points, add additional areas as requested above, and determine which ones we may already have documented, which ones we can contribute, and which ones we should reach-out to subject matter experts to contribute. Ron Schultz from UDEF will be looking into practices for cataloguing.

Links

See above.