Benefits of Collaboration?

Qord

Hi hi hi! Trying to keep this short. I work for an organization that falls under an umbrella organization, along with 4 other institutions. From a business perspective, we're all competitors, but we all feed each other business at the same time, so it's really a win-win. This gives us a total of 5 different IT departments, all of which operate semi-independently. We all do things a little differently, we all have our own proprietary tools and homegrown methods, but we are forced to work together at times as well. My task is: Increase collaboration, communication, and cross-training through all 5 IT depots. We've got a wiki nobody uses, a Portal that hasn't seen traffic in months, an underutilized chat server....the list goes on.

I think I need to start with the benefits of collaboration and work from there. We've got decent tools I think, we just need the motivation to use them. Does anyone have any IT-centric resources for collaboration, it's benefits, and ways to get around the taboos? (I really don't want your job, so it is OK to show me how you do that) We are all fairly geographically separated, so it's hard to schedule face-to-face meetings more than once or twice a year and get any decent turnout. Thanks TE!!

al3kt.R***

Dear Qord,

Create a "rich", dual strategy based on tools from both communication & collaboration categories

1. Asynchronous media: Intranet Portals, Wikis, GroupMails etc
2. Synchronous media: Video Conference, IM/Chat, Virtual Workspaces etc

As for products, that enable & enhance collaboration, fall in the categories specified and I've been using with my colleagues on a day-to-day cooperation basis, you could try MS Lync, MS SharePoint Portal, MS Groove (now Microsoft SharePoint Workspace), MS Project Server, Kerio Workspace, all known IM/Chat clients and Saba to name a few.

Regards m8