1. Process Communication and Collaboration

2. Communication & Collaboration tools
Collaboration of people from different teams, institutions or companies
Technology Transfer involves different persons: researchers, TT officers, lawyers, companies, …
Inter- and intra-team collaboration needs usable tools
One-way communication vs. Interactive communication tools
Challenge: Implement tools
that minimise collaboration efforts
that are used without time consumption
that are up to date 2

3. Process Communication & Collaboration Definitions
Communication can be defined as the process of sending and receiving information among people. Shannon’s model is often described as the beginning of modern communication theory as it fits for interpersonal communication as well as to mass communication.
Information source
Destination
Trans-mitter
Receiver
Channel
Noise
Adaption of Shannon’s Communication Process

4. Communication Information source: e.g. a person who creates a message.
Message, sent by the information source and received by the destination.
Transmitter: can be a medium (e.g. telephone) but also the sound of the voice in face-to-face communication
Signal, which flows through a channel, e.g. electronic signals, radio waves, or words and pictures in a book.
Channel: The most common channels are air, light, electricity, radio waves, paper, and postal systems.
Noise, in the form of secondary signals that obscure or confuse the signal carried.
Receiver: Originally, the receiving telephone instrument. In face to face communication a set of ears (sound) and eyes (gesture). In television, several layers of receiver, including an antenna and a television set.
Destination: Presumably a person who consumes and processes the message.
Source
Destination
Trans-mitter
Re-ceiver
Channel
Noise

5. Collaboration Definition:
Derived from the Latin word “collaborare” meaning: to work jointly with others
Today: joint efforts and inputs from different people in a working environment
Current trends in Collaboration:
new internet technologies have created a new kind of “mass collaboration”
Basis: improvements like high speed internet, wireless connection and web-based collaboration tools like wikis or blogs.
Results:
People from all over the world can efficiently communicate and share ideas
One impressive example of this mass collaboration is the online “Wikipedia”, where thousands of people contributed to currently 14 billion articles in more than 260 languages.

6. Communication & collaboration for technology transfer process
Key issue for technology transfer, especially
between researchers (common research project)
between researchers and TTO (evaluating transfer opportunities)
between researchers and companies (evaluating cooperation possibilities).
Communication & collaboration tools can be used to address the difficulty of
Raising awareness for technology transfer topics within research community
convincing researchers to come forward with their ideas/technologies and
possibly considering starting up their own venture.
There is a close connection of the topic “communication and collaboration” and the topic “Networking and clustering”

7. In Practice Tools for Collaboration
MFG internal communication and collaboration tools consists of:
MFG Intranet: central platform for internal information
MFG InnovationWIKI: MFG knowledge pool
CRM: Community Relationship Management tool
Pidgin: instant messaging system 7

8. MFG knowledge management – Overview
MFG Intranet
central platform for relevant news
used at least once a day
Participation of everyone allowed and expected
Community Relationship Management
The linkage between contacts and documents or projects
Active participation and up to date data
MFG knowledge management
Instant Messaging Tool
Can reduce internal phone calls and s with little content
Widely accepted: about 2/3 of staff uses the instant messaging tool every day
Consideration as optional tool, which can integrated into daily work according to his/her needs
MFG InnovationWIKI
knowledge pool for relevant topics and trends
Currently more than articles
Used by every employee 8

9. In Practice Collaboration Setup for Research – CoCoNut
CoCoNut = an internal IBBT project involving researchers from many domains & backgrounds (sociologists, economics, engineers, law researchers, mathematicians, etc.)
“research the ways in which IBBT researchers work and interact, design the ideal collaboration/sharing environment to work efficiently while being geographically spread.”
MyBBT = The implementation of the coconut findings
“Smart, interactive, attractive collaboration & knowledge sharing platform for IBBT researchers and partners” 9

10. CoCoNUT – Idea It established was established, because
IBBT is a decentrally structured organisation
900 researcher spread over 5 universities and many more campuses.
Equal amount of research partners in industry
There was no common work space before MyBBT
Projects did have separate, closed collab websites
This means: no knowledge sharing cross projects, no overview for senior people that participate in more than 1 project
Hence: little or no tools for knowledge sharing. 10

11. CoCoNut – Impact
Most added value for seniors, who need overview and dashboards
When everybody uses the tool in the right way we should be able to:
Provide a single source of info regarding IBBT projects to our researchers
Have one single point of entry for all IBBT related questions that are not publically available
Have clear processes and practices defined and documented
Have a good way to communicate to the IBBT community, or segments of it. 11

12. Suggested Readings
Don Tapscott, Anthony D. Williams: Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, 2006
Link to bibliography
Link to code book
Link to relevant websites