As a facilitator I do a lot of work with groups of small businesses who say they are interested in "collaborating as a network" (whatever that means). The conventional approach to working with such a group is to first build some trust, exchange company information and then start exploring collaboration possibilities. The problem is that this approach does not really work!

If you want to innovate you must first learn to collaborate

A couple of years ago I co-authored a major report for Forfas (the Irish national policy advisory board for enterprise, trade, science, technology and innovation) on Innovation Networks under the overall editorship of Tom Martin.

Levelling the playing field for UK SMEs

In an article, UK SMEs Get Green Light from Government, published Friday 9 September 2005, the UK eGov monitor Newsdesk reports that public sector buyers now require 'good reason' not to use smaller suppliers.

Ten questions to ‘healthcheck’ a collaborative business network

All business networks are not equal

A new network portal called esymbio has been launched by MerseyBIO, the life sciences sector support organization for Merseyside.

In a previous article, Virtual Enterprise Networks allow business scale through virtual collaboration I introduced the idea of a Virtual Enterprise Network or VEN as a way for smaller businesses to achieve “virtual scale” by collaborating on business development, marketing and project delivery for major enterprise customers.

How does an enterprise achieve real competitive edge via IT these days and is it possible to develop a edge which cannot be easily copied?

Virtual business networks are appearing everywhere and in many guises and names such as Collaborative Networks, Virtual Clusters, Virtual Enterprise Networks, Collaborative Supply Chains, Networked Enterprises and Star Alliances to name just a few.But how does a business leader or a government policy-maker make sense of them all?

Small businesses from many different industries, both traditional and hi-tech, have discovered a new way for them to succeed in the "global economy". It involves collaboration on large proposals, R&D and fulfilment of orders assisted by relatively low cost, virtual collaboration technology.

Virtual entrepreneurs inhabit the hidden spaces in and between enterprises

Virtual teams are not just for corporate projects - there are numerous forms of virtual network, enterprise, community and cluster. One of the most interesting areas for the virtual team is in new enterprise development and entrepreneurship. Bioteams Guest Article by Ray Symmes.