Analyzing Collaborative Communication Technologies
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Organization Selection and Identification of Collaborative Opportunities
The organization that I have chosen is Clean Harbors. Clean Harbors is a leading provider of environmental, energy, and industrial services throughout North America. They serve a diverse customer base. This included a majority of the Fortune 500 companies, federal, state, provincial and local governmental agencies, plus thousands of smaller private companies and organizations. They offer premier used oil recycling and refining, parts washers and environmental services. They do that for the small quantity generator market. The oil recycling and refining comes from the subsidiary named Safety-Kleen. They provide a broad set of environmentally-responsible products and services that keep business in balance with the environment.
Clean Harbors has been trusted since about 1980 for environmental, energy and industry services. Below is a list of services Clean Harbors offers:
Waste Disposal and Recycling
Emergency Response
Chemical Packing
Field Services
Industry Services
Production Services
Exploration Services
Directional Boring
Lodging Services
Insite Services
My personal role in the organization is the Senior Project Manager. I do bid on different jobs and also make sure that projects are getting done on-time and also on-budget. Those are just a few of my responsibilities. Because of the position that I am in and the amount of projects that we have going on I have to travel about 60% of the time. Sometimes more and sometimes less. It just depends on how many projects and also how many leads we have going on at one time.
When doing the work that I am doing I noticed that even though I need to travel for the initial bid estimate; I dont need to travel for every little thing that happens on the project. Unless something goes wrong or they need me at the project site, I figured there had to be a better way to make things a little easier on myself and also some of the people I work with. Plus saving money is always the biggest thing. With that being said I feel like using technology is the best way to reduce travel spending and also make it easier on employees.
The collaboration opportunity that I am going to focus on is going to be the use of Skype and also using Go To Meetings. They are both online communication services that would work great when working with clients that are out of state or in a different country. Using these ways of online communication it would make it easier to have the face-to-face communication without being face-to-face. This will cut down on travel expenses significantly. All that is required is for each party to have an account and also a webcam. Both forms of communication are great and easy to use.
Technology Evaluation “Same Time, Same Place”
The collaboration technology type that I chose was video conferencing. I chose this because I believe that having this on top of everything else; text messaging, email, and regular phone calls, this is a wonderful tool to have in the business sector.
Assessment Questions
Assessing the Cultural Practice
For the technology selected, answer the questions below: Does the technology:
Allow for collaboration between individuals in the organization?
Do not know
Allow for collaboration between teams in the organization?
Do not know
Allow for collaboration between individuals / teams in the organization, and its partners, suppliers and customers?
Do not know
Help identify experts in subject areas?
Do not know
Allow for the identification of communities-of-practice in subject areas?
Do not know
Allow users to set up a personal profile that can be found in searches by others?
Do not know
Scoring: “Yes” = 1; “No” or “Do not know” = 0
Total score for the cultural practice dimension (add up scores): 4
Divided by 6 = 66% average
Assessing the Economic Dimension
For the technology selected, answer the questions below: Does the technology:
Help reduce the amount of time working on tasks?
Do not know
Allow you to easily transfer different media types to co-workers?
Do not know
Permit accurate auditing for usage and cost?
Do not know
Reduce the effort of working together?
Do not know
Reduce the time spent searching for information?
Do not know
Make completing tasks easier?
Do not know
Scoring: “Yes” = 1; “No” or “Do not know” = 0
Total score for the cultural practice dimension (add up scores):5
Divided by 6 = 83% average
Assessing the Political Dimension
For the technology selected, answer the questions below: Does the technology:
Help you reach relevant peers / experts?
Do not know
Support you in reaching responsible managers?
Do not know
Encourage collaboration among managers / supervisors?
Do not know
Help you achieve your performance goals?
Do not know
Aid you in valuing the efforts of co-workers?
Do not know
Meet the expectations set forth in your job description?
Do not know
Scoring: “Yes” = 1; “No” or “Do not know” = 0
Total