What virtual collaboration can learn from the film industry
Stumble It!In an excellent paper (PDF), The Virtual Organisation – Technical or Social Innovation? Lessons from the Film Industry, Lucas Introna, Hope Moore and Mike Cushman from the London School of Economics explore the parallels and the lessons we can learn in trying to form effective virtual enterprises, virtual organisations, virtual teams and virtual networks.
They suggest that:
"the film production process is characterised by flexible adaptation to changing production conditions, similar to the virtual enterprise .... and illustrates the balance of flexibility and hierarchy which is required between contracted individuals who are involved in collaborative, creative, short-term contracts."
The authors conclude that we can gain a lot of insight into how to make effective virtual collaboration by studying the film production process particularly in its use of:
- Roles, power and lightweight contracts
- Reputation, norms and moral sanctions
- Common Language (Filmspeak)
- Networks of trusted partners
These are all critical success factors for building successful virtually network teams.
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Bioteams Books Reviews
Organisational teams: thin slice for responsiveness
Humans and animals do not need complete information to act; they can operate on various clues provided there is a sufficient context. Organizational teams can also use this thin slicing technique in conjunction with short messaging to enhance their performance. Malcolm Gladwell’s introspective book Blink digs deep into the abyss of human cognition to illustrate the human ability to think at a subconscious level. The idea of thin slicing is used where one is introduced to only a few snippets of information which lead to a series of conclusions based on moments of rapid cognition – an ability claimed to be intrinsically dormant in most humans. By bioteams guest author Max Bhanabhai.
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