‘Collaboration’ is a word that is being thrown around the global playground of work presently. As a word it is overused, but as a concept it is underutilised in many ways. Frankly, most of us mistake ‘collaboration’ for ‘partnership’ or ‘strategic alliance’. So why is this word that is difficult to say when you have had a glass of wine or two becoming common terminology in offices, laboratories, factories, studios and even whole fields across the globe?

Over the last 30 years we have slowly moved from organising and re-organising production systems, industrial relations, factories and procedures to understanding and facilitating ideas that are shared and developed using collaborative methods that we still do not understand the power of. The most significant catalyst has been mass adoption of the web, in the western world at least. Not only has it removed geography, it is enabling mass participation and mass innovation.

We all need to wake up to this blurring between producers and consumers, I include customers in this too. If we had woken up, we’d within our businesses be creating platforms to encourage participation and creation whether online, or call me old fashioned, face to face.

We are possibly witnessing the democratisation of creativity. Communities of people connected around your brands wanting to get involved in how you shape the future of your businesses. If you’re scared by that, you need to ask why?

There are some scathing examples of forerunner industries on how not to do it. Consider the music industry. Pioneers at one end of the scale, taking advantage of technology by creating and remixing existing music to equal quality in a back bedroom. At the other end, instead of trying to build new business models around the freedom of creativity and digital content, business is backlashing big time by suing its customers. A lost opportunity.

Prosumers are not going away. Their contribution to our business is becoming fundamental. Co-creating with customers is extremely powerful. The solutions are likely to be better, the end product more aligned with customer need, and to be honest, it will probably be more inspiring than we could have ever created on our own. It also brings us closer to our fans, followers and audience.

But, it will demand a different way of doing business, new rules and a new set of challenges. Prosumers aren’t just buying our products anymore, they are making them in a fertile ground of innovation. This is more significant than gaining customer feedback, listening to our consumers, pulling focus groups together, customised solutions or design competitions. Its about customers being genuinely involved in co-creating products, marketing, human resource activity at a peer to peer level. If we sincerely want to be around in 10 years time, we need to learn new ways of leading these kinds of communities. And, if we don’t create and engage with these communities of prosumers, they will invent around us.

Are you keeping people out or inviting them in? It costs very little to pick a great customer who has fabulous ideas and creates value for your business and then mix him/her up with a few of your other customers and let them come up with the next developments you need to make. Imagine how that may impact your reputation too!

The costs involved in being ahead of the game have always been considered a hindrance, a lame excuse for avoiding the risk. Now, however, the money required is a lot less, or is it that the risk is?

Being that one-step ahead, in the past, has been about your product. Is it the latest? Has it got more widgets than the competition? Is it using the most sophisticated technology? A lot of small businesses have tried to compete by investing in that product development, insistent that having their own product is crucial to adding value to the business and sustained success.

That might still be the case. But products move that fast now. They change so quickly that its hard for a small business to keep up, never mind have the resources to pump thousands (and the rest) into products that could be defunct in a couple of years or, someone else has been developing with a budget double the size of yours.

It’s not about ignoring or pulling out of product development; it’s about working collaboratively and in partnership with other people in your game. You can share the cost, share the resource and share the risk. Or, on another note, let some other person develop the product and you concentrate on customer acquisition and retention. Your businesses worth is just as much about your customer portfolio as it is about your product nowadays.

Products come and go, so do customers but there worth a hell of a lot more than they used to be and customer experience costs a hell of a lot less than product development. Today, doing it on your own can be like shooting yourself in the foot.

Which I had written this:

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/02/which-comes-first-the-product-or-the-marketing.html

Customers are different

The people that work with us are different

Our suppliers are different

The way we work together is different

The customer/supplier relationship is different

How we make money now is different

The way we use our computers and mobiles is different

The internet is different

How we consume energy is becoming different

The cars we are driving are different (or if they are not now, they will be)

Our perceptions are different

Our expectations are different

You are different

I am different

……than we were three years ago, yet we are still communicating, building business strategies, marketing plans and product development on three year old thinking. Unstable, unsure times bring about two opportunities, those that are missed and those that are taken.