mulate in a less expensive way?” As proposals are discussed and modified in this way, the group will identify the highest priorities and gravitate toward a small number of possibilities. These can then be tuned for more effective action. The group’s final agreement on projects to take forward cements its solidarity and service to a larger cause.

One of the facilitator’s main duties is to manage the group’s mood: it should be open and appreciative throughout. Openness encourages everyone to contribute ideas and disclose concerns. Appreciativeness invites creativity. The contrasting mood of problem-fix-ing tends to be narrow; it focuses on what’s wrong rather than what could be; it discourages group solidarity [ 1]. The facilitator also displays all new points learned, proposed, or created on shared computers or wall posters. This form of group memory helps everyone recall ideas belonging to the group as a whole [ 10].

Consider a scenario of a group of green and blue infrastructure advocates deciding to collaborate together despite the clash between their perspectives. Their discussion might evolve as follows. They discover that some of their members are motivated green because beloved family members succumbed to lung diseases. They discover that others are motivated toward security because their businesses have been robbed at gunpoint and because one of their companies went out of business in a blackout. They discover that all of them are hesitant to back a cen-

tralized government solution because of the government’s poor track record; they do not want to risk locking in a bad solution. They start speculating about grass-roots solutions that make it desirable and fashionable to be both green and secure. They agree on committees and working groups that will sponsor contests for well-designed energy-efficient products and stimulate research into personal home power plants that don’t depend on the grid being operational all the time.

LIMITATIONS OF THIS STRUCTURE

How far does the collaboration process scale? We know that it works for workshop-size groups (approximately 50–200 people). It extends to larger communities if the workshop represents them well and if the sponsors can support the project teams created by the collaborating group. What about messy problems that affect millions of people? How do we bring about enough collaboration to influence so many?

This of course is the central question in efforts to deal with large-scale wicked problems such as sustainable infrastructure or global warming. We don’t yet know how to make the collaboration process scale up to enlist millions of people in a solution. Currently, problems of such scale tend to be resolved by strong leaders who combine technology with political and media operations to inspire collaboration. For example, Candy Lightner and Cindy Lamb established Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) as an

international movement. U.S. Senator George Mitchell established the “Mitchell Principles” that created a workable framework for dialogue that ultimately led to the peace agreement in Northern Ireland. Amory Lovins, who focuses on technical facts and avoids moral judgments, has helped clients as diverse as Wal-Mart and the U.S. Department of Defense deal with energy issues.

CONCLUSION

Collaboration occurs when a community creates a solution to a messy problem that takes care of all their concerns at the same time. Collaboration is an ideal achieved far less often than it is invoked. It is often confused with information sharing, cooperation, or coordination. Most of our “ collaboration technologies” are actually tools for information sharing. We have a few tools for cooperation and coordination, and very few for collaboration.

Scaling up the known collaboration processes to country or world sizes will require significant advances in collaboration tools and networking. Their designs will be based on deep knowledge of the practices now used by the human facilitators of today’s processes.

You can use the five-step collaboration process anytime a small-scale collaborative solution is needed. You do not need the full process with workshop. The full process is most useful for achieving collaboration within a large, more diverse community.