The Collaboration and Productivity Community of Practice wants to make sure the University of Michigan community understands the tools and services available to them.
But this group goes beyond simply sharing information in a one-way direction.
Co-facilitators Brian Cors and Madi Atkins have shifted the group’s focus to something more conversational. It’s about helping each other think about new ways to leverage the services that they may not have thought of before, talk about new things, have an idea of what people are more interested in, and how it all fits into U-M’s environment.
“The way I’ve approached my work is to remember that there are people on the other side of the keyboard, not just a computer. In a lot of different ways, words and actions matter with how and where you use this type of collaborative technology,” said Brian Cors, service manager for ITS Collaboration Services.
Madi Atkins, technical writer senior for ITS Collaboration Services, underscored Cors’ point, “People are using these tools. We can’t forget that. This community of practice wants to humanize the experience of using technology at the University of Michigan.”
Especially over the past five years, both Cors and Atkins have seen a noticeable and intense shift in people being more productive and collaborating remotely. Atkins shared, “If I didn’t have these tools, I wouldn’t be as successful in my job, and the work wouldn’t be as meaningful.”
Membership
The group mainly started with people who work in IT, but membership is open to anybody who wants to be a part of it. Membership ranges from Unit IT support to communicators, administrative assistants, program and project managers, faculty, and all types of students.
The community of practice may be beneficial for staff who teach for their units. Cors said that it’s hard to manage education about technology in a large university where units are often siloed.
Connect and Learn
One of the main benefits of the group is to help make connections across departments to learn from each other in a better way. Presentations often come from community members and focus on ITS services. This is because those services are widely available and easier to incorporate, as ITS has handled the contracts. Some of the topics have included discussions about the use of virtual whiteboarding tools, as well as Zoom AI and Google’s NotebookLM, and Gemini services.
The facilitators also tailor the meeting content to what’s happening and use the meeting time to showcase how people have been experimenting. Cors said, “We’ve always wanted it to be more than news. We help people figure out what tool might help them and the people they serve.”
A Real-Life Example
One presentation was shared by Michigan Medicine staffer Joe Gregoria, IT manager, and Kali YILMAZ, software developer lead, both with the BRCF Advanced Genomics Core. They figured out how to leverage Slack for their entire business operations, from interpersonal communication amongst staff to tracking the work of research sample processing.
Gregoria shared that, instead of developing their own issue discussion forum, they integrated Slack with the laboratory information management system, or LIMS, by adding a “SlackIt!” button that creates monitored threads in a dedicated Slack channel for issue tracking and discussion. New features enable tagging users or groups, tracking open discussions, and closing issues directly from the LIMS, allowing Slack to handle communication while the LIMS tracks samples and project status. “It’s been very good to us!”
Next Meeting: Let’s Get Social!
Both Cors and Atkins invite the Michigan Technology Community (and anybody interested) to join them at their next meeting, a socially focused gathering that will give folks a chance to meet in person and connect.
- Event details: August 6, 3 – 5 p.m., Casa Dominick’s (820 Monroe St., Ann Arbor)
Learn More
- Meetings are in February, June, August, and November; sessions are not recorded
- Learn more by visiting the Productivity and Collaboration website
- Become a part of it by joining the MCommunity group
- Chat with us in the Michigan IT Slack workspace channel
