Why do you think collaboration is the work culture of the future ?

While working in any organization you have to talk with many people everyday, more and more in future. Projects are getting more complex and to succeed in a project, its becoming more critical to share your ideas with all others and get ideas from them. Collaboration will not be just a culture for the future - collaboration and co-creation is the culture every company will adapt very soon. Earlier the mediums of collaboration were different. These mediums served their purpose but today they are too slow and too time consuming to cope up with the market demands. "SPEED" is becoming the big factor in today's business, and you need a faster medium for collaboration. No medium I have seen has the SPEED and EFFICIENCY of metalayer.

How is metalayer better than the existing communication solutions like ERP and CRM ?

It really is not a comparison. ERP & CRM are valuable tools, and also extremely efficient. metalayer is a collaboration and communication tool. With metalayer you not only communicate with your colleagues but also with your customers and partners. metalayer is accessible from anywhere and at anytime. When I was working with CRM tools, I found it very surprising that the "R", the relationship is missing - which is the most important factor! If you analyze the markets, one of the many reasons of failure is the lack of transparent relations with your customers, employees and partners. Yes, CRM tools are excellent to make sophisticated databases and store information about your customers and contacts with them. metalayer is very efficient to communicate effectively with your customers and establish "TRANSPARENT" relationships with them. metalayer gives you the "R" in CRM. metalayer is more like a layer on top which can integrate human unstructured conversations and collaboration.

In what business areas does metalayer mainly work best?

metalayer can work in any business where there is lot of communication and knowledge involved. It works best if the manager is sitting in one office and his team members are scattered all over. metalayer works best where managers want to get the feedback of his team instantly - where everyone shares his ideas and knowledge with each other instantly. It also works best in companies which want to establish Transparency or companies which want their employees to talk to each other more often. I think most of the companies today will need one of these advantages.

How are you different from solutions like e-room and groove?

e-room is a good tool to define procedures for your project and share files with your team members - but its very difficult if I am working in 5 different projects as there is no facility where I can get the collective view of all projects on one page which we in metalayer call the "TIMES/PERSONAL" page. Also, these solutions do not provide support to chaotic human conversations and context driven interactions which is the only way humans talk and collaborate and the key for co-creative work. Another thing missing in e-Room is the PERSONAL PORTAL which gives me the collective view of all my networks. I would say metalayer is providing a work environment for collaboration and knowledge creation rather than assembling some online procedures and structures.

You talk about work transparency. Don't you think people will feel insecure about working in sheer transparency?

I agree that this is a new culture and many people would have a problem with too much transparency. But if you see the current market situation and how corporate transparency is becoming a major issue, it would be prudent and wise to bring in a culture of transparency in any organizations. Once people see that sharing and transparency is better for individual development also, it'll be easier for them to embrace this new culture.

You are the first employee of metalayer and have been with metalayer since it started - What were the major steps in metalayer's development? And how did metalayer change your way of working?

I am proud of the way things have turned out for me and metalayer. If I look back and compare then and now, then I must say that metalayer has developed its own META-CULTURE of transparency and openness. It takes time for a new person to adopt to this culture and some times its not so easy to work in this culture We have built a great team which is a firm believer of metalayer vision and culture. metalayer has changed me a lot. Earlier I was very shy person and usually kept to myself. metalayer has not just increased my confidence level but with such an open & transparent culture, I learned the real meaning of communication and trust.