It is not enough to just deploy the latest collaboration tools, whether that is Microsoft SharePoint; Office Communications Server; Google Apps; a corporate VoIP telephony system; mobile devices like the BlackBerry or iPhone; or the latest online collaboration tool reviewed on WebWorkerDaily. The challenge is getting people using them — and for that you need a collaborative corporate culture.

Some integral elements of a collaborative corporate culture include:

• “Come-and-go-as-you-please” schedules. If your company is doing a seat check every morning in its cubicle farm, you don’t have a corporate culture conducive for much online collaboration. While “face time” is an old school management crutch, today’s workforce runs at a different pace with alternative work schedules, telecommuting, offsite contractors, and a myriad of employee personal commitments can foster what I like to call a “come-and-go-as-you-please” schedule. A collaborative culture helps do away with the age-old myths of the value employees get by spending time roosting in an office.
• No knowledge archipelagos. An old IT contractor colleague of mine once coined the term “knowledge archipelagos.” A knowledge archipelago is formed when employees hoard institutional knowledge, whether it is key documents on employee’s local hard drives or crucial  information in their heads, much like an archipelago of islands. Organizations that have a central repository of information  — off local hard drives and individual’s email inboxes — don’t have knowledge archipelagos, meaning that you don’t have to run down somebody to get access to their information. Sharing of project artifacts and corporate information online is integral to a collaborative corporate culture.
• Presence beyond the office (and regular office hours). I once had a client consider that if I was online via AIM, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, or Windows Live Messenger, regardless of the hour or day that I was available to discuss work topics. While this attitude may seem invasive to some, it can make you more conscious your personal online time after hours. I’ve worked with other clients where IM wasn’t part of the mix during or after work hours. Again, it’s all about the culture.
• Technically savvy employees. Through my career as a consultant, the organizations I saw excel at online collaboration and remote working had a very technical savvy employee base, which shaped the corporate culture because a majority of them were early adopters, and lived a large part of their working day online. Their needs and work schedules fed into corporate culture and had an influence into the acceptance of online collaboration in the corporate culture.
• Supportive management. A true collaborative culture requires a supportive management team that wants their workers to be accessible to each other through multiple channels and realizes that traditional working modes won’t attract and retain the best talent. It also helps if these managers are early adopters and are champions for online collaboration and the benefits it gives to workers. The management team should also champion the environment, and be technically savvy (not just falling for the latest Web 2.0 tool fad). Another quality of supportive management is that they aren’t shy about recruiting employers or contractors outside of commuting distance from their nearest office.

Culture is key to successful online collaboration and that is an element that is often times hard to capture in reports and surveys. Web workers seeking new opportunities need to seek prospective clients and employers where the corporate culture is more than just four walls and a cubicle farm and there is a strong track  record of online collaboration and remote working already in place.

What elements of corporate culture do you see driving online collaboration and remote working in your employer and clients?

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Basically, your competitors are the other freelancers whose target clients are similar to your own.  Their clients come from the same age group, niche, industry, and budget range as your own clients do.  In other words, they are the other option that potential clients and employers will be looking to hire if they won’t be hiring you.

Of course, you shouldn’t just spend your time defining your competitors.  You need to define yourself too.  Knowing the competition’s strengths and weaknesses is almost useless if you don’t know your own.

Find out what works (and what doesn’t work) for them. Go through their website, online promotional materials, and even the final output of their services, if you can.  When you do this, it helps to put yourself in a potential client’s shoes.  This allows you to be in a more receptive frame of mind.  As you look at these materials, it helps to ask yourself the following questions:

• What strategies are they using that gains your trust?
• What would make a client choose them over you?
• Is the value of their service evident in their online presence?
• What are they charging?  Can they justify this?

After you’ve done this, it helps to go over your own promotional materials to compare notes.  See if you can apply any of their techniques to your practice.

Know how they interact with clients. Doing this requires a bit more research.  You’ll need to learn how the competition engages your client.  Is their communication style friendly or matter-of-fact?  Do they contact the client regularly in the long run or do they stop communication after the project is complete?  Do they interact well with clients across a wide range of Web 2.0 literacy?

Here are some ways you can find the answers to these questions:

• Subscribe to your competitor’s blog entries.
• Subscribe to their online newsletter, if applicable.
• Look for client reviews, whether on the client’s website or the freelancer’s.
• If you need to outsource some work or get a helping hand, it might even help to hire your competitor’s services, if only to get a more accurate insider’s perspective on how they deal with clients.

Remember what makes you different. There is no way that you and your competitors provide the exact same thing in the exact same way.  There’s bound to be an area of differentiation.  For example, while Nizoral and Head and Shoulders are both anti-dandruff shampoo brands, the former is marketed as a more medicinal type of cure, while the latter is marketed as a shampoo for everyday use.

What value do you bring your client that your competitors do not?  Is it your years of experience?  The many languages you speak?  The diversity of your skills?  More often than not, your client uses this as the deciding factor, and not your price.

See if you can cut a deal. In many cases, I’ve had to refer some clients to other freelancers who are a better fit for them when I don’t have enough skills for a specific job, or when I’m simply overbooked when they need me.  An article over at Freelance Folder suggests the same thing as well, but with a great catch – you should get a deal with your competitors where you get a percentage of their profits from your referrals.

Learning more about your competition isn’t necessarily about competition itself, it’s just another way of staying ahead of your own game.  If you think about your competitors with this attitude, you’ll become a better service provider, and both your new and existing clients will just be reminded of why they chose you over your competitor.

Do you take competition seriously in the online freelancing world?  How do you use competitors to your advantage?

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