The Profession of IT

The sad news is that most of our “ collaboration technologies” are not able to support such collaboration processes. The good news is that with a clear understanding of the essence of the collaboration process, we can design technologies that can help.

Category

Information Sharing

DEFINING COLLABORATION Collaboration generally means working together synergistically [ 6]. If your work requires support and agreement of others before you can take action, you are collaborating.

Coordination

Cooperation

Coordination and cooperation are weaker forms of working together; neither requires mutual support and agreement. Coordination means regulating interactions so that a system of people and objects fulfills its goals. Cooperation means playing in the same game with others according to a set of behavior rules. In this discussion, we use collaboration for the highest, synergistic form of working together.

Four levels of working together are listed in the table here along with examples of supporting groupware tools. We have listed

Collaboration

Purpose

Groupware Examples

Levels of joint action and associated tools.

Exchanging messages and data

blog chat content streaming corporate directories database sharing discussion board document sharing email file servers instant messaging live presentation

PC access recording remote blackboard

RSS screen sharing version control systems remote VoIP

VPN

Regulating elements and auction systems
players for harmonious classroom management
action concurrency control
decision support
interactive voice recognition
Internet protocols
network meetings
online payments
operating system
project management
shopping cart
service-oriented architecture
support center
telescience (remote lab)
workflow management

Playing together
in the same game
under agreed
“rules of interaction”
(including games
of competition)

collaboratory creation nets discussion forum multiplayer games newsgroup

Second Life socially beneficial games wiki (Wikipedia)

Creating solutions or strategies through the synergistic interactions of a group of people

Appreciative Inquiry Brainstorming Charrettes Consensus workshop Straus Method

tools at the highest levels at which they can consistently deliver the expected results. For example, chat is an information-sharing technology but it does not guarantee that participants will cooperate or coordinate on anything. An operating system is a coordination technology and a multiplayer game is a cooperation technology but neither guarantees that its players will synergistically achieve a larger goal.

Although the informa-
tion-sharing technologies
do not guarantee coopera-
tion, coordination, or col-
laboration, their users
sometimes develop impres-
sive systems of practice.
For example, the Faulkes
Telescope is a facility that
provides free access to
robotic telescopes and an
education program to
encourage teachers and
students to engage in
research-based science edu-
cation (see http://faulkes-
telescope.com). John
Hagel and John Seely
Brown see this as a fine
example of a creation net,
a (possibly collaborative)
community that learns and
invents together. Creation
nets can be adopted and
managed by organizations
seeking to be more innova-
tive [ 5]. Thus, a commu-
nity practice can be
harnessed and imitated
even if no technology embodies it.

It is apparent from the items listed in the table that most “ collaboration tools” do not guarantee their users will collaborate on anything. Only a few tools actually qualify as collaboration technologies. The five collaboration tools listed are processes that at best are partially automated.

If we are to achieve the extent of collaboration we keep calling