Written by: Courtney Steen, Brad Warren, and David Lee
1) Increased efficiency. People can accomplish the same tasks in one place that they used to have to open several programs to do, making communities a far more efficient place to get those things done. Activities include writing and collaborating on documents, blogging, brainstorming and problem solving, using Microsoft Office Suite programs (like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.), managing projects, communicating with clients and customers, evangelizing (both internally and externally), training, and a lot more.

2) Direct access to organization knowledge and expertise. Instead of wasting time tracking down information in server archives or even paper files, the sophisticated Web 2.0 technologies (tagging, searching, etc.) enable participants to access the knowledge they need more quickly—in both archives and current posts—and it generally takes fewer people to find it (one person performing a search as opposed to a person approaching five people trying to find out where the information is located and how to access it).

3) Open dialog. Dynamic and open dialog is one of the most efficient ways to communicate, whether it’s disseminating information or opening a discussion and inviting comments. In a place where all the participants gather, answers and responses come pretty quick and are more comprehensive than if an individual did the research alone or did it offline. And because discussions and documents exist in perpetuity in archives, over-communication becomes minimized. Also, these platforms naturally invite solutions to problems that are constructive and creative, and often come from surprising places.

4) The power of the minds of the many outweighs the power of the minds of the few. Enterprise collaboration supports both critical and creative thinking and problem solving through information gathering and collaboration. It’s not just discussion, it’s true collaborative research in the sense that participants both respond to one another to form more progressive solutions, and present their proof in a myriad of ways (cross-referencing information in the archives, presenting videos or music files, etc.).

5) Discussions and versions of docs are archived. While especially important for companies that need to conform to a certain level of transparency for legal reasons, these archives also assist future topic discussions and facilitate knowledge warehousing.

6) Incorporates both discussion and multimedia in the form of URLs and links to articles and websites, as well as video and music, etc. One key difference between offline collaboration of a similar nature is that these online communities enable participants to directly add links, videos, music clips, and other multimedia to aid their discussions and collaboration, making understanding just that much quicker.

7) Flattens an organization’s communication structure. The traditional way of communicating is more of a horizontal roller coaster, with employees navigating the chain of command trying to find the right people to help them solve problems or participate in discussions, often leading to a lot of up-and-down, back-and-forth, and complicated over-communication. Enabling participants to communicate directly and pose questions to all employees (and respond to those discussions) increases and improves communication, freeing up the rest of the chain of command for other activities, and ensuring that the people with the right knowledge respond in an effort to find a solution or advance a topic.

8 )Accountability. No one is anonymous in the communities, so management knows where the discussions and topics originate and can easily monitor conversations. Participants are accountable not only for the amount of work they produce (which is easy to track), but for the discussions they hold and the comments they make.