I am pleased to launch the YouTeamFast blog/online resource which pulls together Twenty One of my best techniques for assessing, mobilising, operating and improving teams and is the second website in my YouWorkFast series.

Prediction Markets apply group intelligence techniques such as the wisdom of crowds to provide new insights into certain types of decisions about the future which an enterprise must make. According to Andrew McAfee of MIT Sloan School of Management and the author of the book Enterprise 2.0. "They may seem like strange beasts but prediction markets are simply stock markets; they contain securities that are bought and sold by traders." Read his excellent 2-page introduction.

I am the team! It might sound like heresy but sometimes the most effective way to produce something is not through collaboration but by just doing it yourself.

The Delphi Technique is a proven way to harness collective group intelligence (popularly known as "the wisdom of crowds") in a wide range of applications. It is also non-proprietary and supported by a number of excellent free resources.

A virtual team profiling technique to help you spot problems before they turn into nasty surprises by first exposing the nature of the team in 8 key dimensions: Team Objectives, Leadership Style, Member Profiles, Team Shape, Environment, Working Approach, Social Dynamic and Technology.

Good operational meetings, whether co-located or virtual, are the engine of organisational and project governance. However often their success is left totally to chance. Here are my five key tips for making them more effective:

The most widely used tool for mobile, distributed and virtual teams is still the plain old telephone conference call. However it is also the most badly used! So whether you are talking over Skype, mixing it with screen sharing and messaging, using your corporate PABX or just calling in to an external service if you follow these 12 simple rules you will get much better calls.

The Wisdom of Crowds and Collective Intelligence are very useful concepts but not if they are used in the wrong places. Confusing these two concepts will only produce bad results for your groups and teams.

I am pleased to announce the launch of "The Bumble Bee's Top Collaboration Techniques" as a mini site within www.bioteams.com as a practical resource for coaches, facilitators and team leaders who are incubating or supporting teams, networks, groups or communities, either Virtual or Co-located.

Usually we think of the importance of sharing 'positive' intelligence between organisational team members, however recent UK research on foraging Pharaoh ants indicates that sharing 'negative' intelligence to avoid wasted effort may be just as important.