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Reimagining Collaboration: Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and the Post-COVID

World of Work

Copyright © 2021 by Phil Simon. All Rights Reserved.

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 Also by Phil Simon
ZOOM FOR DUMMIES

SLACK FOR DUMMIES

ANALYTICS:
The Agile Way

MESSAGE NOT RECEIVED:

Why Business Communication Is Broken and How to Fix It

THE VISUAL ORGANIZATION:

Data Visualization, Big Data, and the Quest
for Better Decisions

TOO BIG TO IGNORE:

The Business Case for Big Data

THE AGE OF THE PLATFORM:

How Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google
Have Redefined Business

THE NEW SMALL:

How a New Breed of Small Businesses Is Harnessing
the Power of Emerging Technologies

THE NEXT WAVE OF TECHNOLOGIES:

Opportunities in Chaos

WHY NEW SYSTEMS FAIL:

An Insider’s Guide to Successful IT Projects
 Praise for

“Plenty of business books make us think. Some even inspire

action. Reimagining Collaboration is the rare book that not only
accomplishes both, but provides the framework to effect real
change. It is essential reading for anyone leading or managing
today’s rapidly shifting workplace. Business leaders should
buy copies for all of their employees.”
—NICK HUZAR, OfferUp CEO

“An insightful perspective on the new world of work.

Collaboration is more essential than ever, and Phil Simon
provides the roadmap we need.”
—DORIE CLARK, author of Entrepreneurial You and executive
education faculty, Duke University Fuqua School of Business

“We all collaborate, although some do it better than oth-

ers. We all need to align our talent, technology, and tech-
nique appropriately for the times. Phil Simon’s Reimagining
Collaboration will up your game, regardless of your current
level of expertise or collaboration tool of choice.”
—PROF. TERRI GRIFFITH, Keith Beedie Chair in Innovation &
Entrepreneurship, Simon Fraser University

“Phil Simon’s latest book not only defines collaboration with

a depth and breadth never before seen, it defines the future
of work in tomorrow’s successful organizations. Reimagining
Collaboration is a must-read not only for those leading knowl-
edge management and productivity efforts, but for every
business leader in any organization.”
—DOUG LANEY, Innovation Fellow, West Monroe Partners
and author of Infonomics: How to Monetize, Manage, and
Measure Information as an Asset for Competitive Advantage
 “You will love Reimagining Collaboration, a humor-filled
yet perceptive journey into the remarkably collaborative future
of work. Simon’s framework and practical tips will help your
team move from good to better to best.”
—DR. MARY DONOHUE, founder of The Digital Wellness Center
and author of Message Received: 7 Steps to Break Down
Communication

“At one time or another, I’ve used many of the tools dis-
cussed in this book. I just didn’t fully appreciate the bigger
picture. Reimagining Collaboration made me appreciate the
true power of these collaborative technologies—especially
when used together.”
—BRIAN SOMMER, technology industry analyst and author of
Digital With Impact

“Solutionists believe that new technologies magically

solve major challenges by themselves. Of course, they’re
wrong. Effective collaboration is a nuanced, multidimensional
problem—a point that Phil Simon makes in spades. Ultimately,
Reimagining Collaboration delivers on its promise: To make
readers not only think differently about this essential subject,
but provide a framework for actually doing it.”
—MIKE VARDY, founder of Productivityist and author of The
Gift of Time
To the frontline workers battling COVID-19.
You are true heroes.
“Never attribute to malice that which can be
adequately explained by ignorance.”
—Hanlon’s Razor
 Contents

Introduction xix

Part I: The Collaboration Imperative 1

Chapter 1: The Evolution of Collaboration 3
Chapter 2: Collaboration in Context 19
Chapter 3: The Benefits of Reimagining Collaboration 43
Chapter 4: Why Email Inhibits Collaboration 51

Part II: Better Collaboration Through

Technology 61
Chapter 5: Reimagining Workplace Technology 63
Chapter 6: The Hub-Spoke Model of Collaboration 79
Chapter 7: How to Select an Internal Collaboration Hub 99
Chapter 8: Why Collaboration Hubs Can Disappoint 117

xiii
xiv Reimagining Collaboration

Part III: Moving From Theory to Practice 127

Chapter 9: Reviewing Implementation Strategies 129
Chapter 10: Reimagining Business Processes 139
Chapter 11: Collaboration Killers and How to Handle Them 153
Chapter 12: The Myths of Collaboration 167
Chapter 13: Reimagining Communication and Human
Resources 183

Part IV: What Now? 195

Chapter 14: Why Effective Collaboration Requires Lifelong
Learning 197
Chapter 15: The Future of Collaboration 207
Chapter 16: Recommendations for Reimagining
Collaboration 221

Conclusion and Parting Words 229

Thank-You 231

Suggested Reading 233

Acknowledgments 235

About the Author 237

Index 239

Endnotes 249
Contents xv

List of Figures and Tables

Figure 1.1: Percentage of Americans Working Remotely 10
Figure 1.2: U.S. Cities With Biggest Percentage Gains in
Net Arrivals 13
Figure 1.3: U.S. Cities With Steepest Percentage Declines
in Net Arrivals 13
Figure 2.1: The Dimensions of Collaboration 36
Figure 5.1: Zoom’s Insane User Growth 67
Figure 5.2: Aging in Reverse 75
Figure 6.1: The Hub-Spoke Model of Collaboration 85
Figure 6.2: Zoom Zapps 85
Figure 6.3: Power Automate Template to Post Email to
Microsoft Teams 89
Figure 7.1: Collaboration Hubs and Diminishing Marginal
Returns 105
Table 7.1: The Three Fields of Enterprise Technology
Adoption 112
Figure 12.1: My YouCanBook.me Page 173
Figure 15.1: Microsoft Teams’ Together Mode 216
Figure 15.2: Breakdown of Employee Work Preferences 219
Table 16.1: Collaboration Maturity Model 222
Figure 16.1: Tools Matter 223
Figure 16.2: Size (Probably) Matters 224
Internal collaboration hub (n):
General-use software application designed to promote effec-
tive communication and collaboration. Ideally, all organiza-
tional conversations, decisions, documents, and institutional
knowledge exist in a hub. Critically, hubs connect to different
spokes. They enable automation with little-to-no technical skill
required. Examples of today’s popular hubs include Slack,
Microsoft Teams, and Zoom.

Spoke (n):
Software application designed for a specific purpose. Examples
include productivity, content creation, customer-relationship
management, and project management. Spokes can easily
exchange information with hubs, provide status updates, and
more. As a result, employee, group, and organization commu-
nication and collaboration markedly improve.
 Introduction

“You can write a 200-page book about Zoom?”

My friend Tess incredulously asked me this question after
I told her that I’d signed a contract to pen Zoom For Dummies
in April of 2020. (In fact, the book ultimately came in at twice
that length because, as I came to learn, Zoom is so much more
than a user-friendly videoconferencing application.)
To be fair, Tess’s skepticism wasn’t entirely unfounded.
As I would soon learn, she was no outlier. Many people
didn’t—and still don’t—fully appreciate the true power of today’s
collaboration tools—and not just Zoom. My previous book, the
equally hefty Slack For Dummies, had evoked similar reac-
tions. Some long-time Slack and Zoom users posted online
reviews, noting that my book taught them a great deal about
what those technologies could do. Even some employees at
each company echoed that sentiment.
I have spent the last quarter-century at the nexus of man-
agement, collaboration, technology, and data. As a result, I
have learned a thing or six about each. For the purposes of
this book, people generally use workplace collaboration and
communication tech in limited capacities. New applications

xix
xx Reimagining Collaboration

arrive, but they tend not to alter our habits, and certainly not
immediately. And I’m hardly the only person to observe as much.

Meet Eugene Fubini

Eugene Fubini (1913–1997) immigrated from Italy to the United
States in 1939. During his career, he helped create U.S. policy
during the Cold War. He is perhaps most famous for codifying
four principles. Fubini’s Law states that:

1. People initially use technology to do what they do

now—but faster.
2. Then they gradually begin to use technology to do
new things.
3. The new technology changes how we live and how
we work.
4. These changes to how we live and work ultimately
change society—and eventually change technology.

The operative word here is gradually. As a general rule,

when it comes to workplace technology, people of a certain
age tend to fight change as long as possible. It takes a black
swan for them to fundamentally change how they work.
COVID-19 was such an event.

The Struggle (to Adapt) Is Real

Go back to March of 2020. Think about how you and your
colleagues responded when your employer suddenly shut its
doors. Did that transition go off without a hitch? If so, then,
congratulations are in order. You’re one of a relative few.
Introduction xxi

The struggle to adapt to the new normal was real. It still is.
I saw firsthand how woefully unprepared even a purportedly
innovative institution was for such a dramatic shift in how its
employees work and collaborate.
By way of background, during that surreal period,
I was finishing my fourth year as a full-time college pro-
fessor at Arizona State University’s W. P. Carey School of
Business. My home base was the Information Systems (IS)
Department.
Three facts about COVID-19 and ASU will provide the req-
uisite context. First, oodles of international students attend the
school. In 2017, that number approached 14,000, more than
any other public university.1 At any point and depending on
geopolitical winds, roughly one in five ASU students calls a
country other than the U.S. home.2 For a long time, ASU and
other state universities have heavily recruited foreign students
for obvious reasons: These students typically pay fees two to
three times higher than their in-state counterparts.3 Chinese
students are particularly prevalent in Arizona.
Second, for the last six years, U.S. News & World Report
has named ASU the most innovative school in America. 4
Its powers-that-be have never been shy about sharing that
accolade with the world. On the contrary, that tagline prom-
inently adorns its website5 as well as many local buses and
billboards. In one example of how it touts its innovation, the
school proudly announced that it had procured an enterprise
license for the popular collaboration tool Slack in January
2019—well before a single documented coronavirus case
anywhere in the world.
xxii Reimagining Collaboration

Third, media outlets such as The New York Times reported

dozens of coronavirus cases in China as early as June
of 20 .6
Brass tacks: COVID-19 was coming to American universities
including ASU. It was a matter of when, not if.
Let’s take a step back and summarize:

1. The most innovative university in the country sports a

large international contingent.
2. Many of these students are Chinese and had returned
from their homeland in January of 2020, after the win-
ter break.
3. ASU had recently purchased a powerful new collabo-
ration tool.
4. University leadership conservatively had more than
three months to war-game the inevitable arrival of
COVID-19.

Against this backdrop, surely ASU could shift all of its

courses online with minimal disruption to faculty and students
alike, right?
From the outside looking in, you might think so.
And you would be spectacularly wrong.
When ASU announced the indefinite suspension of
in-person classes in the middle of spring break of 2020,
utter chaos ensued. It took only a few days for orderly
processes, normal activities, and established deadlines to
devolve into widespread confusion. Specifically, and in no
particular order:
Introduction xxiii

• The administration’s hastily arranged Zoom and Slack

training classes didn’t staunch the bleeding. Many
professors skipped them because they had other fish
to fry. No surprise here. It’s impossible to fix the plane
while it’s in the air. Overall class quality and student
learning plummeted.*
• Department-wide webinars left faculty members with
more questions than answers.
• ASU discouraged thousands of students from returning
to their dorms. Some of them could not even retrieve
their textbooks.
• One student filed a class-action lawsuit claiming breach
of contract and demanding tuition and housing refunds.7
• Administrators’ guidance to faculty was anything but
clear. As but one example, some professors subsequently
offered their students pass/fail options. Others refused.
• Students clamored for exceptions, extensions, and
do-overs—some legitimate, others because coronavirus
ate their homework.

Lest I paint an overly negative picture of my former

employer, a few disclaimers are in order. First, every institu-
tion of higher learning struggled in the immediate wake of
COVID-19. It’s not like there was a playbook to follow. They
weren’t opening a local Subway or Arby’s. School presidents
were making things up on the fly.

* Department chairs broke precedent and intentionally ignored

student evaluations when making decisions to extend offers to
existing non-tenured faculty.
xxiv Reimagining Collaboration

Second, let’s say that every ASU professor had been pro-
ficient in Slack and Zoom. Managing the situation still would
have been challenging, given the school’s massive student
population: 90,000 in-person and 38,000 online at the end
of 2019.8

The Bill for Years of Inertia Finally

Comes Due
Since the fall of 2017, I had used Slack in all of my classes.* I
had encouraged my colleagues to use it as well, admittedly
without much success. During my tenure at ASU, only a
handful of my IS colleagues had warmed to it. I suspect that
professors in the Philosophy and English departments sported
even lower adoption rates.

“We shape our tools, and, thereafter, they shape us.”

—Marshall McLuhan

Although disappointing, at least the party line was con-

sistent. A few times since I had started, I asked department
decision-makers why we relied exclusively on ’90s-style email
and attachments for internal communications, especially after
ASU had purchased a far better tool. After all, we were the IS
department, damn it. Shouldn’t we be setting an example for
the rest of the university by embracing Slack?
They hemmed and hawed. Fundamentally, they didn’t want
to learn new programs and change their antiquated business

* Read my post on the topic at https://bit.ly/hsc-slack.

Introduction xxv

processes, conditions that I had diagnosed many times in my

consulting career. Professors and staff kept using their email
for internal communication and “collaboration.”
McLuhan was right.

The Revelation
Fast-forward to mid-April of 2020. As finals approached,
all things considered, my semester was progressing fairly
smoothly, especially in comparison to those of my colleagues.
In part, I could thank my proficiency with Slack and my decision
to continue using it at the beginning of the semester. I didn’t
have to introduce my students to a new communication tool
in the midst of the chaos. (Also, in the interest of full disclo-
sure, the department had assigned me four online classes
that semester. I had already recorded my requisite videos in
January, well before the shit hit the fan.)
Outside of the classroom, I was knee-deep in researching
and writing Zoom For Dummies. At that point, I used Slack,
Zoom, and Microsoft Teams daily in different capacities—the
three most popular collaboration hubs in the world.
I had noticed how the three applications were far more
similar than dissimilar. Indeed, they shared much of the same
core functionality. It occurred to me that the specific tools
that organizations, groups, and individuals use to collaborate
certainly matter, just not as much as most people think. (The
only caveat: As long as they don’t attempt to “collaborate” via
email, but we’ll tackle that topic in Chapter 4.)
Focusing on the features of a specific application cer-
tainly made sense when writing a For Dummies book. In
xxvi Reimagining Collaboration

a way, though, that approach obscured a more important

reality: As I witnessed firsthand at ASU, fusing new tools with
antiquated habits and business processes didn’t magically
make groups, departments, or entire organizations more
collaborative. By themselves, applications don’t rewire our
tried-and-true habits.
Let me draw a golf parallel. Say that your swing is horren-
dous. When you take the club back, you don’t know where
the ball will ultimately land. Buying a pricey new driver won’t
make you any less of a hack. You might even hit the ball
farther out of bounds. Rather, to become proficient or even
competent at the sport, you’ll have to break your bad habits
and learn new techniques.
At that point, the big idea at the center of this book began
taking shape. Compared to my last two, I envisioned a shorter,
tool-agnostic text that would offer manifold benefits.

What You Should Know From the Get-Go

I believe in truth in advertising. To this end, know this:
Reimagining Collaboration provokes and challenges its read-
ers. It intentionally questions conventional and deep-rooted
assumptions about how we communicate and collaborate at
work, such as:

• All text-based communication is essentially the same,

irrespective of the application used.
• The tools that people use to communicate and collab-
orate are inherently personal and don’t affect others
in the organization.
Introduction xxvii

• Asynchronous communication and collaboration are

just as effective as their synchronous counterparts.
• It’s technically demanding and time-consuming to stitch
together different applications.

Chapter 12 explores these myths in far more depth.

I want you to look at communicating and collaborating
through a very different lens. If you do, then you’ll reevaluate
a number of things. First up is your existing relationship with
workplace technology. Why do you keep switching back and
forth among different applications? Why aren’t all of your tools
connected—or at least most of them?
Beyond that, in all likelihood, you’ll never view your existing
business processes in the same way. I suspect that you’ll want
to redesign many of them.
In short, this book asks if we can do better.
Reimagining Collaboration is conceptual in nature. In
this way, it represents a vast departure from my recent
forays into the For Dummies world. Because of the rapid
pace of software updates today, my last two books are on
burning planks. This one, however, should hold up for the
foreseeable future, regardless of vendors’ changes to their
user interfaces.
In a similar vein, this book is technology agnostic by design.
The following pages are equally relevant for employees who
work in Microsoft, Google, Slack, or Zoom shops—or even if
their companies have not deployed one as of now. If you’re
looking for tips on how to use those internal collaboration
hubs, you won’t find them here.
xxviii Reimagining Collaboration

Who Should Read This Book?

In no particular order, I wrote Reimagining Collaboration with
these audiences in mind:

• Your team, department, or employer sucks at collabora-

tion and internal communication. You’re searching for a
better way to work with your colleagues and partners.
• You mistakenly believe that effective collaboration
entails hitting “Reply All” on an email thread.
• Your organization has deployed Microsoft Teams,
Slack, Zoom, or another internal collaboration hub. Six
months later, however, collaboration is still wanting.
• Your organization or team is thinking of deploying one
of these hubs.
• You have adopted new, collaborative technologies
and processes at work. You want your colleagues to
do the same.

If you fall into one of these groups, then Reimagining

Collaboration is right up your alley. I don’t guarantee results,
but you will look at collaboration through a new lens.

What Will You Learn?

This book does not lack ambition. Reimagining Collaboration
introduces a fundamentally different model for workplace
collaboration and communication. You’ll learn how to think
about these subjects, as well as technology and business
processes, in a holistic way. I don’t just introduce a new model,
Introduction xxix

though. You’ll learn how to put it into action—and how to

handle people who are stuck in their ways.

Plan of Attack
Part I of this book (“The Collaboration Imperative”) provides
an insanely brief history of collaboration, technology, and
the workplace. It contrasts collaboration with adjacent work-
related terms. I make the case that collaboration today matters
more than ever. Only by eschewing email can we realize the
benefits of true collaboration.
In Part II (“Better Collaboration Through Technology”), I
explain how a new breed of tools that I dub internal collabo-
ration hubs—hence, this book's subtitle—makes it far easier
for employees to work together. The big three are Slack,
Microsoft Teams, and Zoom.
I also introduce the fulcrum at the center of this book: the
Hub-Spoke Model of Collaboration. You’ll learn how to easily
stitch different applications together without any coding. By
doing so, you’ll minimize rework, automate tasks, and quickly
get on the same page as your colleagues. Oh, and you’ll
communicate and collaborate much better, too.
At its core, Reimagining Collaboration is disruptive. It forces
its readers to think differently about work. It advocates adopt-
ing new habits and technologies. In that vein, Part III (“Moving
From Theory to Practice”) explains its major consequences:
Organizations will have to rethink legacy business processes
and confront problematic and change-averse employees. I also
offer suggestions about how to maximize the chance that the
new collaboration hub will take root.
xxx Reimagining Collaboration

As you’ll learn in the following pages, neither collaboration

hubs nor their spokes are static. They evolve in interesting
ways. To this end, Part IV (“What Now?”) puts a bow on the
book. I offer advice on how to quickly learn new tools—and
new features of existing applications. I also chime in with some
predictions on the future of collaboration technologies. The
internal collaboration hubs will become only smarter, more
connected, and more powerful. I end with some tips designed
to improve collaboration and a call to action.
I hope that you enjoy Reimagining Collaboration and learn
a great deal from it.