Unlocking the Power of Teams

When collaboration and work-flow moved up to second place in the Top Trends Survey list of the most strategic technologies late last year, it confirmed what ClOs and other IT executives had been telling about the field's growing importance to their businesses. People discovered that about 80% of IT executives believe collaboration and workflow technologies deliver on their promise to boost productivity and decision-making, and half say they enable and even inspire strategies that were previously unattainable or unimaginable. IT executives may undervalue Web 2.0 tools -- if the tools weren't helpful, they wouldn't be so widely used -- while Web 2.0 fans often overlook other collaboration technologies. Executives, it turns out, use few collaboration technologies, relying primarily on e-mail and telephony. Young people are quick to adopt new technologies, and they often lead the charge at work. More-seasoned employees do a better job sniffing out the applications that have the biggest business impact.