PLEASE READ DISCUSSION AND ANSWER THE QUESTION BELOW.

Methods for Strategic Face-to-Face & Technology-Mediated Collaboration

I am in a volunteer committee that is working towards helping the community prevent the spread of Covid-19. Our goal is to make sure that the community maintains the highest possible standards of hygiene and are alert on the ways through which Covid-19 can be spread. The initiative is meant to enable the community to take protective measures meant to keep them safe and therefore save the government from the stress of having to admit many Covid-19 positive cases. It is extremely difficult for the government to work without support from the community and social groups (DoSomething.org, 2017).

Our stakeholders are the community members and therefore we engage them through social media. Each person has got a chance to form social media groups and reach a wider network of people. We have information that we prepare and distribute to the public after it is approved by the local authorities. Our committee is registered as a social work volunteer group that seeks to enlighten everyone around us so that Covid-19 does not wreak havoc among the community. To avoid groupthink, we will ask each member to contribute by putting in their personal efforts. Also, before one joins the group, he/she is required to have agreed to our beliefs that we have come together for the good of the community. Innovation and creativity is the spirit behind the social groups (Manning et al., 2012). The collaboration methods that would be successful through face to face interaction include making strategic alliances with other groups, making a public-private partnership whereby we would partner with public organizations to further out activities and collective impact initiatives.

A technology-mediated collaboration includes searching for sponsors of our activities from abroad (Palczuk, 2017). This will be possible through applying for such sponsors online and they would finance us after seeing our proposal and the kind of work we intend to undertake. Such sponsors have the heart and will to finance people to carry out community-based initiatives and would therefore be happy to collaborate with us. The strategies will be finding the interested sponsors, sending them our proposal, and requesting them to join us in our efforts. The recommendations would be successful because many individuals, foundations, and organizations are; looking for volunteers to carry out such activities that we are undertaking but are finding it difficult to get volunteers.

The strategies for technology-mediated collaboration are different from the face to face ones such that the technology-based allows the collaborators to come from different countries and continents all over the globe (Mattessich & Johnson, 2018). However, the face to face collaboration initiatives is limited. The pros of the face to face mediated collaboration are that the individuals are able to effectively convince each other and also chances of fraud are minimized. Technology-mediated collaboration allows one to have an unlimited number of collaborators (Palczuk, 2017).  The cons of the face to face collaboration are that the number of individuals collaborating may be limited by the fact that they have to meet physically. Also in technology-mediated, chances of fraud and one disengaging from the project is high due to lack of physical contact. Nonverbal cues help the collaborators to express themselves better in both methods. They include the use of facial signs and body language to accompany the verbal language to make communication effective.

QUESTION

You stated: “The strategies for technology-mediated collaboration are different from the face to face ones such that the technology-based allows the collaborators to come from different countries and continents all over the globe…. “

I have found this to be a huge asset of technology-mediated collaborations. Do you see any potential drawbacks to consider?