Knowledge workers behind times with collaboration - KnowledgeBoard

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Knowledge workers behind times with collaboration

04-Mar-09

Knowledge workers behind times with collaboration

Technologies that are over a decade old are hampering the way that knowledge workers collaborate but there is still a long way to go before firms are brought up to speed with 21st century IT...

Knowledge workers are collaborating more extensively but their businesses are using technologies that are in some cases over 100 years old, impacting the efficiency and effectiveness of collaboration, according to new research. And it could spell disaster in the current economic crisis as firms look to save costs by making their business processes more efficient.

The research, which was conducted by Forrester on behalf of Adobe, showed that while 81% of knowledge workers in Europe regularly collaborate with two or more colleagues in different time zones, they rely on the telephone and email to do so. And the shortcomings of these older technologies are increasingly being recognised as 70% are looking for better speed and efficiency to improve current collaboration methods.

However, knowledge workers themselves are in danger of being left behind the times as the report also highlighted that European knowledge workers are not ready to use emerging web 2.0 or enterprise 2.0 tools - current adoption rates are just 1% for wikis and 2% for blogs, for example. The report speculates a key factor could be that the younger generation, who are leading the way when it comes to utilising these technologies, has failed to penetrate a large majority of the current European workforce compared to the US and Asia.

But rather than jump in at the deep end, the survey report suggests European knowledge organisations should take "evolutionary steps" towards web 2.0. "The survey data shows a marked propensity among knowledge workers to stick with what they know for ...

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http://www.knowledgeboard.com/item/2984

http://www.knowledgeboard.com/item/2984