Collaboration: It's Not About The Tools

A few of my recent blog posts have started a bit of a debate - which is great! Peter O'Kelly (former Burton Group analyst and now at Microsoft) responded to my points with this post. Peter remains committed to a framework we all contributed to that he has since refined. His post is worth reading. Craig Roth at Gartner (my old boss), has weighed in as well with this post "The Collaboration Spaces vs. Communication Channels Argument Continues". Craig's post is also worth reading. 

Below was the comment I left on Craig's blog post.

Hi Craig,

Yep - some debates (like the Red Sox and Yankees) can go on and on!

The key points I was making is that if we continue to look at "collaboration" through the tooling of collaboration, we will always draw incorrect assumptions regarding "collaboration" from the view of its participants. Collaboration is not about the tools. The other key point is that communication is intrinsic to collaboration.

 To Peter's point - his diagram remains very much a tooling model. And as a technology lens (or taxonomy), it's reasonably correct. If you equate collaboration as a tooling decision - then my posts will not change many people's minds. However, if you have struggled with collaboration strategies over the years and continue to see inconsistent results - then you might want to consider my posts as taking a "fresh look" at the topic.

 Rather than take a bottom-up technology view on collaboration and push tooling as the proper means to participate and contribute in collaborative contexts (as a tooling taxonomy does), I swiveled the model around. Moving technology to the background makes sense. A people-centric view of collaboration encourages you to understand the contexts and situations where people work together.

 "We" (as an industry) need to shift the emphasis of collaboration strategies away from the very limiting tool discussion to a focus on design, user experience (individual and collective), and relationships, to enable collaboration within whatever environment collaboration occurs. Collaboration can be verbal and visual depending on the context and situation. We need to not treat communication as being outside collaboration models. To do so means we are closing our eyes to a very compelling way that people work together.

Related blog posts:

Collaboration, the long journey

Pushing the reset button on how we look at "collaboration"

Getting ready for a next generation collaborative experience

 

Comments

[Davidchris]

I agree Mike. The technology facilitates communication and collaboration is shouldn't define it.

I'm a big Fan of the P.O.S.T methodology (People => Objectives => Strategy => Tools) where tools is the last thing to address when needing to implement a social media strategy for communication and collaboration.

Check out http://www.slideshare.net/DavidChris/be-ne-lux-sms-mar-2010 which is based on a real scenario identifying the wrong way and the right way to approach collaboration.

Nice post!

[air jordans]

Firstly,thanks for your share of your experience and happy.so I hope you could do better and keep show it in your blog.I like this blog,and may often attention it.

[Pankaj]

The collaboration process or the need to collaborate is of course outside of collaboration tools. Tools may be seen as the catalyst, which spur a latent underlying need to collaborate. You may want to read my article on how companies can use behavioral techniques to improve collaboration software adoption, and in turn improve collaboration - http://www.hyperoffice.com/blog/2010/11/04/6-ways-to-increase-collaboration-software-adoption/

[cameron]

i have to agree with the comment about technology is on there to facilitate collaboration. if you use technology correctly is will be a good catalyst to your desired outcome especially the more complex a scenario is, for defense , engineering and complex area for document collaboration take a look at www.globalkap.com it is pretty nice to see that 500 people can work on the same document at the same time - with work flow to allow collaboration to occur.
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