Blog

HandBaskets

Posted on by jerome

Despite recent research proving beyond doubt social media’s calming effect on geopolitical and racial tensions, CollabSystem is not convinced and is launching a campaign to equip as many people as we can with HandBaskets.

Helena Basquette, CollabSystem’s head of wicker weaving, described the move as a reaction to the non-eventful world of social media:

It used to be that Twitter was a place of bullying and outrage, a wild west of bots and hate speech. People have wised up to that and now simply ignore it. All I see these days are random acts of kindness towards minorities and the underprivileged. There’s so much compassion, it’s enough to make you feel ill.

HandBaskets will be distributed at yoga studios across the country, starting tomorrow.

What’s a HandBasket?

A HandBasket is a basket, typically made from a sustainable crop, which can be used to transport groceries and other items. It was first invented as an alternative to the single use plastic bag, which has effectively been eradicated worldwide.

CollabSystem’s HandBasket takes the functional and turns it into a powerful weapon against progress. Unlike regular handbaskets, Helena has incorporated hidden compartments for mace and tinfoil hats to protect against assault and mind control. What looks like an unassuming effort to save the planet from plastic waste is actually a self-contained defense arsenal. HandBaskets sold in Montana also have a compartment for an open carry firearm (batteries sold separately).

Each HandBasket comes complete with two tinfoil hats, one for you and one for a friend. Random HandBaskets also come equipped with tiny hats, suitable for infants and children. Please fit your own hat before assisting others.

Each HandBasket also comes supplied with your own PPH (personal portable hell) in the form of an inbuilt wireless speaker with an eternal subscription to satellite talk radio.

A Return to Doomsday

It is hoped that the widespread use of HandBaskets, particularly by comfortable middle-class citizens of wealthy countries, will bring about a return to the traditional polarizing effect of social media on the world. Not longer can people support altruistic and humanitarian causes without being shamed by their neighbors. Not to mention, they’ll probably be on the receiving end of some HandBasket pepper spray.

Once CollabSystem injects some hate speech on social media through HandBaskets, nothing can stop this snowballing out of control and bringing about a return to untruth, deception, schadenfreude and bigotry that Twitter was originally designed for.

If not, we’ll have wasted a lot of money buying baskets from sweatshops in developing countries.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia.

The New CollabSystem Enterprise Collaboration Model

Posted on by carlosmorley

Many of our clients have complained that our original collaboration model was too liberal and posed unacceptable risks of effective collaboration in their organisation. We are still struggling to work out how they identified that.

However since the launch of Vault, CollabSystem is the global leader in high security collaboration platforms. As a result we have updated our collaboration model to reflect client demands.

The new model focuses on the core demands of effective collaboration platforms for senior executives, corporate comms, HR and IT Security. Based around four simple verbs, this model delivers risk free effective collaboration for any organisation. The phases of the model are:

  • Monitor: it is essential that every single conversation and action on the network is reviewed for risk. Data must be captured on all platform activity. Monitoring is the basis for effective punishment and deterrence. Importantly heavy monitoring will enable the creation of creepy compliance oriented gamification.
  • Delete: the next phase after Monitoring is Deletion. As a network matured and conversation volumes increase, it is important to maintain a chilling volume of message deletion. In addition to deleting any messages containing blacklisted words, banned topics, reference to business information, client details, competitive intelligence, IP, documents, gossip, negative tone, comments about executives, strategy or major change initiatives, we recommend deletion of random messages as a reminder of the power of compliance.
  • Exclude: the next phase of maturity is to begin to boot users who have violated the policies had excessive number of messages deleted or who seem to be enjoying collaboration too much. Get them off the network and back to work.
  • Deny: the final maturity phase is Denial. Not every network comes with Vault’s level of security. However we recommend a complex 4-factor identification model as the final phase of platform maturity. At this point, when your users will have beaten the restrictions and still are collaborating effectively you can deny them access to the platform with a complex security requirement that nobody can satisfy.

The power of this heavy handed model of collaboration is that it helps set a strategy for collaboration in your organisation and also guides your teams on what to do with your collaboration network. Also this highly restrictive approach means people will likely not use your system, enabling you to save costs in the long run. With the CollabSystem Enterprise Collaboration Model you can be sure your employees will be effectively collaborating on a WhatsApp chat group somewhere beyond your control.

Data Doomsday Clock

Posted on by jerome

For those who can’t afford a CollabSystem Vault, we recognize you’re between a rock and a very hard steel door. While some companies that invented universally beneficial technology have given it away for free, our private equity backers have vetoed any further giveaways. With that in mind, we’ve taken the dubious moral middle ground and created a second-best alternative for the cheapskates.

Whether your company hasn’t got the time to read our PCI-DSS compliance statement, or you just can’t afford the eye-watering cost of CollabSystem Vault, the new Data Doomsday Clock is for you. Specifically designed for companies with an advanced understanding of risk management and mitigation strategies (yes, surprisingly that’s you!), the Data Doomsday Clock gives a precise estimate of the date and time when your precious customer data is next going to be sold on the dark web.

After all, risk management isn’t just about eliminating risk. In business we know we have to take calculated risks. When you introduce a new product, you’re taking risk. The product might sell, it might not. Just ask the Pinto team at Ford, they were the masters of risk management. If your company has the sophisticated understanding of risk management that we think you do, your primary response to any sort of catastrophe will be “our Twitter account was compromised, we’re on hold with tech support and our call is very important to them”.

As we all know, data breaches are not a matter of ‘if’, but ‘when’. Traditionally it has been difficult to pinpoint the exact circumstances when your impenetrable security measures will fail. With all the will in the world, some idiot stuffs up the whole system with something like the Heartbleed Vulnerability. It wasn’t your fault, and you can’t even blame your most trusted technology partner for those.

Data Doomsday Clock eliminates 98% of that vulnerability by providing you with an alarm clock which is precisely tuned to the exact time when your system will be compromised. This takes all of the unknown unknowns from the equation. Rather than sitting at your desk waiting for that day to come, you can relax on a Caribbean Island safe in the knowledge that your next data breach won’t occur for another 15 days, 6 hours, 47 minutes and 23 seconds. Or 21 seconds by the time you read this.

As a foundation customer, you will be exempt from a barrage of “special offers” to upgrade to CollabSystem Vault, the frequency of which only increases as the clock nears zero (as does the price). In fact, as one of the first 10 customers of Data Doomsday Clock, CollabSystem will even guarantee that your systems will be compromised at the specified time. Trust us.

Announcing Vault – Securing the Digital Workplace at any Cost

Posted on by carlosmorley

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The modern digital workplace is a place of risks, fear and crime. Every day malicious hackers, lazy employees and negligent executives are stealing your data, your money, your time and your stationery. As a responsible global technology vendor, CollabSystem is determined to address the vibrant criminal enterprises threatening the future of your digital workplace and the lifeblood of your organisation. To adresss these fearful threats, CollabSystem are pleased to announce Vault, the perfectly secure digital workplace.

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Vault is the first perfectly secure digital workplace. CollabSystem can assure the safety of Vault because it is entirely free of human users. Instead of weak human passwords, Vault is secured by 12-inch thick steel doors. No need to worry about hackers, Vault is completely isolated from the internet by an air gap of 12 feet, 12 inches of steel, a metre of reinforced concrete and a kilometre of bedrock. Vault does not rely on fragile two-factor authentication, instead there is simply no access. After setup of your Vault, we destroy the keys, seal the locks and erase all trace that Vault was ever created. With Vault you will never need worry about a loss of data or productivity in your digital workplace. Despite the intense security and prevention of user access, our data shows Vault user adoption is indistinguishable from average digital workplace adoption.

Surveillance

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For the truly paranoid, Vault is also available with a total surveillance module. Vault’s Surveillance module uses sophisticated AI, complicated camera arrays and Facebook quiz to monitor your employees frustration as they totally fail to access Vault. You will have terabytes of video and other data that you will never examine that confirms that no criminal and nobody else ever access your digital workplace illegally or in any other way.

At Any Cost

We know security matters a lot. That’s why we charge a lot. Like other high end security systems, we know once we have you afraid then price is no object. We’d hate to underquote your safety.

Our price is so high we can’t say it out loud. We print it on a fine card stock in gothic font. Call us for an appointment for a confidential quote.

Executive Collaboration

Posted on by carlosmorley
John is foreman material. He decided to stand in front of Jane who we were trying to photograph.

Many senior executives have unique needs in a collaboration. CollabSystem is proud to announce its new toolsuite, Executive, all the tools that a modern executive needs to survive in a modern enterprise social network.

Taking the Executive out of Executive Collaboration

Executive has been developed as a result of extensive consultation with senior executives. Actually, they couldn’t make any time to discuss their needs in collaboration but we did get to talk to their assistants a lot trying to set up a meeting. We based our design on conversations with people from HR, Technology and Employee communications who pretended they knew what senior executives need.

Our goal in launching Executive was to ensure that executives could participation in collaboration solutions with minimum inconvenience and to achieve maximum value. We also wanted to support community managers struggling to get executives engaged with a new set of tools to lower the bar on executive participation. We don’t think we could have got the bar lower without digging.

Our design goal is simple. We take the executive out of executive collaboration. Now all those executives who don’t want to participate in their organisations collaboration initiatives get their wish.

Features

They key features of Executive are:

  • Video: Executives love video, especially video of themselves talking. Nobody can ask a question of a video and there’s no way you can be interrupted by a difficult idea.  Our proprietary software renders a video of the executive standing in a randomised corporate location spouting management speak.  This advanced AI requires no participation of the executive and has been proved in testing to be indistinguishable from the empty rhetoric of a live executive video.
  • Posting Bot: This algorithm will post and like messages on behalf of the executive using exercpts of the executive’s Linkedin profile, business financial plan, family Facebook profiles, calendar, and email as source material.
  • Puppet mode: Puppet mode gives the HR and Employee Communications professionals complete control of the executive’s social profile, posting and even the Video tool to enable them to author authentic simulcra of executive communication.
  • Log rolling: If multiple executives have the Executive tools enabled the solution will ensure that these executives consistently praise each other and support each other’s posts. HR and Employee Communications executives will be able to trigger the virality option in log rolling to use this feature to ensure messages dominate community discussions.
  • Diversity Enhancement: With the simple flick of an admin toggle, HR and Employee communications professionals can switch the gender, sexual orientation and background of executives without requiring the incovenience of change in exective positions or the cost of new hires. The Executive tool will deliver the appearance of both diversity and closing any pay gap simply by flicking this switch. Most importantly the Executives in question will never know that their appearance has been changed as this change will not be visible on their account.
  • Empathy Algorithm: The empathy algorithm will optimise any actual posts of an executive to demonstrate actual human empathy. The algorithm is also responsible for corporate message alignment and any compliance or exception approvals for the executive to open their mouth online.
  • Ego booster: The Executive tools will also ensure that executives posts dominate the feed algorithm, receive sufficient likes and that flattering messages are posted as replies by other employees.
  • Cardboard cutout: A free cardboard cutout of the executive will be provided for use in offline collaboration.

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With Executive mode, people will know your CEO is a dog-lover, but nobody need know that your CEO is a dog

The CollabSystem Collaboration Model

Posted on by carlosmorley

A lot of nonsense has been shared by consultants, management gurus, and thought leaders on effective collaboration.  At CollabSystem we have learned from all of it.  That’s why our product solutions represent the one product you need to buy to achieve effective collaboration in your organisation.

Given the large number of models of collaboration in the marketplace, some of them even effective and credible, we have been asked often ‘What is the CollabSystem model of the human behaviour of collaboration?’

The CollabSystem Model of Collaboration

We know human beings are complex and they get more complex when you connect them in networks so we at CollabSystem know that no simple model will result in hours of mystification, total unpredictability and complete lack of science required to meet our customers’ needs.  At CollabSystem we never believe in saying something with four small words that we could say with lots of long and complex jargon. We know that the most complex diagrams generate the most interest.

It is with these key dynamics in mind that we share with you today our complex jargon-rich and consultant-speak model of Effective Collaboration.

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We belive we have captured all the key elements of Collaboration in our model.  We know this because we stole them from lots of other people’s models and roughly mashed them together. We added lots of big words too. Some of which we barely understand. You should have seen how much stuff we had on our CollabSystem Wall as we developed this.

FAQs for the CollabSystem Collaboration Model

Q: Can I use the model?

A: Please download this image and share it in all your presentations of Collaboration. It is not essential that you understand the model or be able to explain it. You are looking to achieve in your audience that magical experience of an exclamation of “Ah, Science!”

Q: What do organisations think of the model?

A: Because your organisation will find all its favourite buzzwords, they will find further validation of whatever approach they are currently.  If they do challenge the model, you can simply reply “It’s not my model. Ask CollabSystem.”

Q: How do I use the model?

A: Whenever anyone asks for the logic behind your purchase of a CollabSystem solution, just show them our Collaboration Model. Most of the time they won’t even dare ask a question. If people do ask ‘How do I use the model?’, we have an expensive suite of consulting services that will confuse them so much that they will forgot the question they asked in the first place.

Q: Which organisations have used the model?

A: Yours

Q: Will the model guarantee effective collaboration in my organisation?

A: That is not the point of the model. The purchase of CollabSystem’s products is the only thing that guarantees effective collaboration. The model is to make it easier for you to buy our product.

Q: What is the science behind the model?

A: We find science interferes with faith-based technology implementations.

Q: Couldn’t the model be more complex?

A: It is. This is just the two-dimensional representation of a four-dimension space known as the zone of zones. The topology of collaboration in four dimensions is an entirely different matter. The self-referential and adaptive reflexivity of this topology should be sufficient to address the domain specific issues of determinism while avoiding simplistic answers.

Q: What should I do next?

A:Buy now

Collaboration Bingo Button

Posted on by jerome

In response to overwhelming demand for Collaboration Bingo, CollabSystem have launched a ready-to-use pack to make it easier to play than every before.

The pack includes:

  • 13,843 x Collaboration Bingo Cards (printed on 10gsm pre-curled baking paper)
  • 1 x Announcer Microphone (compatible with most emergency evacuation systems)
  • 1 x Bingo Button

The Bingo Button is an engaging way to alert everyone in your organisation that they’ve failed in their attempt to administer CPR to your otherwise lifeless collaboration agenda. The person who pressed the button is clearly the only person who has the mandate to use the word “innovation” in their job title, at least until the next major restructure.

We only include one button because we assume you’ve pre-arranged the winner of Collaboration Bingo. If you haven’t rigged the game, then to create the illusion of fairness we can temporarily supply you with an additional 13,842 Bingo Buttons to place strategically next to each Bingo Card. Take it from us, it’s much easier just to pick the winner in advance.

Along with Collaboration Bingo, we also offer Collaboration Battleship, where your CTO and CMO fight it out to torpedo the SS Disruption in a sea of otherwise hopeless initiatives.

 

 

 

Cards Against Collaboration

Posted on by jerome

Sick of those personality cards handed out at every leadership seminar? Modern workplace tarot was always going to end in disaster. We always knew Trevor in accounts was an introvert. Surely?

Now you too can own your very own set of Cards Against Collaboration, the game sweeping conferences and other ridiculously-priced-sponsorship-opportunity-events around the nation.

The person who most recently reset their password to their payroll system goes first.

Then someone takes a beige collaboration card and places it in the middle of the table.

Each person then completes the sentence with a fuchsia-coloured panacea card. The colour combination is guaranteed to make anyone’s eyes bleed.

Hilarity then ensues. Amusing combinations such as:

Collaboration is … when we stop pushing the revolving door and a change champion runs headfirst into the glass with a full tray of coffees.

Innovation happens when … Felix, an otherwise well-trained dachshund, answers nature’s call on the fake grass in the innovation lab.

The winner of each round is the person who’s combination convinces the CEO to launch a new initiative.

Cards Against Collaboration is available in-store and online from all good innovation labs.

 

 

 

 

Tangible Products – The Wall

Posted on by jerome

One of the most annoying aspects to being a technology consultancy is that a lot of what we do is ‘fluffy’. We freely admit that most of what we do isn’t tangible. Today that’s all about to change, as we launch the CollabSystem Wall™. The CollabSystem Wall® is a complete structural solution for your future workspace. It’s not some half-baked virtual technology construct.

You might expect us to have created a hyped-up, bandwagon analogy of a time-honoured architectural tradition, but instead we aim to delight our customers with their very own brick wall. Each CollabSystem Wall© even comes complete with real mortar! Wall construction has been a staple in establishing human civilisation – China, Mexico, Berlin, Jerusalem, Hadrian, Pisa, and Wodonga all putting their best plumb foot forward throughout the ages.

When you purchase a CollabSystem Wall (pat. pending), a skilled team of bricklayers will come to your office. In the case of remote workers or distributed teams, our team will even come to your employee’s home. Our bricklayers will quickly and efficiently construct a freestanding solid brick wall with a minimum of fuss. They will then clean up, and leave you with an almost-indestructible reminder of just how far we’ve come as a society since 7500BC when the first bricks were created.

The CollabSystem Wall℠ comes with a myriad of uses, echoing the multipurpose nature of the construction methodology.  For starters there are literally a million ways you could decorate the wall. Apply plasterboard, cement render, plaster, paint, wallpaper, tile, faux fur, or any combination of those. Try your own combination of cornice, skirting board, architrave, and shadow line. Literally, the choices are endless. If you’ve empowered your workforce with Choice℠, employees can even request a different finish on each side of their Wall. We suggest you locate CollabSystem Walls so that their owners have to crane their neck awkwardly to see their wall. This encourages obsessively checking one’s own Wall, constantly aiming to be better than other Walls.  This also maximises the amount of expensive real estate taken up by the excessively heavy Walls.

You’re then free to customise the CollabSystem Wall to drive business value. Add whiteboards, blackboards, shelving, hooks, plumbing, electrical, insulation – basically anything that your business needs to make the CollabSystem Wall your own. Anything but your corporate branding, which requires our prior written consent before applying. The beauty of the CollabSystem Wall® is that we don’t quite know what you want, which is why we have to come to your boardroom and deliver a well-rehearsed PowerPoint presentation on why all the effort you’ve invested in open plan offices, standing desks, and pentagonal meeting cubicles is about to be rendered* obsolete with the construction of many, many walls.

To achieve a truly Future of Work office, you’ll have to give everyone their own wall. Anyone on a talent program will require at least two patented CollabSystem Walls, letting everyone who passes by know how special they are. Important managers will want at least four CollabSystem Walls© arranged in a quadrilateral pattern to give a retro 1950s office feel. Those who sometimes work from home will be relieved to now find a permanent masonry reminder of their workplace in their bathroom, meaning no end to the nightmare of work. For permanently distributed teams, all CollabSystem Walls are finished in an identical military green camouflage pattern, uniting the team towards a common enemy as they gaze horrifically at a newly-built brick wall from their kitchen.

The CollabSystem Wall is expected to be the first in a long line of construction-related products. Not content with just bricks and mortar, expect to hear rumours of CollabSystem stockpiling large amounts of steel to construct real-life silos to separate business units later this year. Once silos have been rolled out, CollabSystem will attempt to train a team of pandas to lay bricks, creating the world’s very first CollabSystem Chinese Wall©.

 

* “Rendered” (as a double entendre) is used under licence from MySpace Inc.

Collaboration Bingo

Posted on by carlosmorley

At CollabSystem, we believe in supplying your organisation with the tools that enable employees to have fun, cut through to the essential issues and share powerful and productive moments of work together. That’s why we are proud to announce the latest CollabSystem’s Productivity Solution – Collaboration Bingo.

Never again will you be bored to tears by useless, repetitive and dull advice on how to successfully transform the culture of your organisation to ensure success in a digital economy. When you hear someone discussing the future of work, the importance of collaboration or how to achieve effective innovation in organisations you can use this essential tool to celebrate and record the insights.

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Complete an entire row or column and you can shout ‘Collaboration Bingo’. Complete the entire board and, as reward for your endurance, you get a speaking gig at the next Collaboration or Future of Work conference . Ask a question using an entire column or row and we will give you a free 90 day trial of our premium collaboration solutions Walking, Talking and Working. Ask a question using the entire board and we will give you a gig on the CollabSystems board.

Most importantly of all use the Collaboration Bingo board to terrorise the poor Community Manager responsible for developing employee collaboration in your organisation. Their work is not hard enough. They need more challenge and to be more widely mocked. Never again will their efforts to help employees be productive at work escape hard questions.

Just think how insightful you will seem to your peers when you ask “Is the Community Manager as Innovation CEO dead given the role of Bots as a Productivity tool?’ or “How do Viral Social Learning Metrics Bots accelerate employee adoption of Future of Work Policies?’  Most importantly of all your depth of insight will stump any inexperienced community manager who doesn’t know that the only real answer to any of these questions is ‘Just Buy Jive, IBM Connections, Socialcast, Yammer, Slack, Workplace by Facebook, Stride, CollabSystem’

 

Note: Like all good collaboration solutions the idea behind this one is stolen.