Wired to Share: The Importance of Teams

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nateperro/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

I’m plowing through the new Gary Vaynerchuk book “Crush It!” and really enjoyed his description of teamwork for business in Chapter 4, “a whole new world.” He uses an example of journalists, which I just happened to have been/to be. Vaynerchuk describes how top journalists in the new “personal brand” economy – enabled by low-to-zero-cost communications – could spin off to create their own successful content orgs. The book, despite some hype and stargazing, is also quite down-to-earth and practical: this hypothetical team of journalism stars just might need to hook up with someone skilled in business development to make their venture work.

This kind of teamwork is going to become more and more important as traditional institutions fall under their own weight in much more mobile and information-driven business world. Flexible teams – inside, outside and between large corporations – are also a large theme in one of my favorite books, Thomas Malone’s 2005 “The Future of Work.”

Putting together a team, even a loose one, is something I consider imperative to initiatives in the Web 2.0 world, even if it’s just to share the load and get moving quickly, as with the group hosting of my Gov 2.0 Radio podcast.

In government or business, how are you using teams to optimize strengths, to launch quickly, and to adapt?

~Adriel Hampton is a San Francisco public servant and host of Government 2.0 Radio.