“When it comes to collaboration technologies, IT needs to take off the brakes and put its foot on the gas.”

So says Alastair Behenna, chief information officer (CIO) at professional recruitment company Harvey Nash. He says focusing on being the security policeman at the end of the network will result in the IT department missing the opportunity to become more involved with the business.

“Collaborative technologies such as Web 2.0 will happen, and if the CIO tries to impose a terribly prescriptive strategy, he or she will be out of a job,” he says. “You have to partner with the business and be able to demonstrate that you can accomplish collaboration better than anyone else and come up with new ideas for technology which are useful.”

Behenna should know ­ – after all, he champions collaboration. He introduced instant messaging, despite the objection of one (now ex-) executive who expressed concern that it might result in people talking to each other.

“Collaboration is either in your blood or not, and it is in mine,” says Behenna, who is keen to transfer his ideas to the rest of the business ­ – often using the information services and technology (IS&T) department as a laboratory for testing new collaborative technologies.

“We are using collaboration technologies for effective engagement with our client base, recruitment base and internally, to talk to each other without having to worry about the distances between us. Innovation is encouraged within the IS&T department and people are trying out new toys which can be turned into something useful for the business,” says Behenna.

Collaborative technologies that have been seeded in the IS&T department before being implemented throughout the company include blogs and wikis, which led to Behenna’s team of 46 people becoming more business-focused. He says the line between business and technology has blurred, with the result that the IT team consists of business technologists.

Behenna says email is the company’s most critical tool, but other collaborative technologies are being used to shore up weak points. The company extranet, for example, is used to enhance contact with the helpdesk through chat facilities at the desktop level.

“There is such a thing as corporate spam,” says Behenna. “Many employees would not bother reading helpdesk emails informing them that the server will be down for a time, but then they phone up the helpdesk to complain about the downtime. We look for ways to be more effective in getting information across and stopping the rubbish coming through.”

He points out that many collaboration technologies are inexpensive and easy to deploy, with high returns. “Our RSS feeds allow anyone to subscribe to our job advertising and last month 10 per cent of the job applications to our UK web site came directly from our UK RSS job feed,” says Behenna.

“It is a very cheap, high-availability method of getting information to people who want to receive it. They have to subscribe so it means we are not spamming. We use FeedBurner to manage RSS feeds but there are many different products available and it is simple to do.”

Blogs have also proved their worth at Harvey Nash, with the IS&T department taking a leading role in promoting best practice. Many of the business heads and consultants, as well as the chief executive, are active bloggers.

“Blogs are our window to the world and a method of getting our message across,” says Behenna. “They have ensured that Harvey Nash is not a passive business by steering the company towards becoming thought leaders and almost a news channel.”

Five per cent of the firm’s web traffic comes from blogs ­ – and Behenna says the technology is a key part of Harvey Nash’s marketing strategy. More specifically, being able to measure benefits allows the IS&T department to demonstrate real value.

“If you cannot measure, you cannot improve,” says Behenna. “We measure all traffic that comes through the web site to demonstrate in pounds the value to the business. Executives can then see where something is working and we can suggest improvements, such as using key words in blogs to improve search engine positioning.”

Harvey Nash looked at several blogging technology providers before settling on a system that provided an enterprise look and feel. Content, however, is left up to individuals. “If you are starting out, you could consider a hosted service and localised technology,” says Behenna. “We focused on brand recognition across our groups because we are global, but we are not prescriptive about content.”

Wikis, meanwhile, gained wider appeal following an initial IS&T management wiki that was set up to support monthly reporting within the department. There was previously a lack of structure in how information was submitted, with managers presenting Word documents and emails that relied on multiple styles and templates. Information can now be put into a wiki easily and freely, through a single process that provides one location for people to see the documents being submitted. Behenna says the reporting cycle has also been reduced from three days to one.

As the accuracy and relevance of reports has increased, wikis have grown in popularity through the business. A team leader wiki has been implemented to support a new international layer of management within Harvey Nash. The platform is used to help promote an identity for the team and to foster relationships and information sharing. Behenna says the platform is now more important than email for sharing ideas.

“The IS&T department was the trend-setter for wikis. We displayed their value and established proof of concept,” says Behenna. “There is now more collaboration between departments. Each department has my report, for example, and employees are more up-to-date with what is going on. If people buy into a concept, it grows.”