How do you define Collaboration?
For the nth time, this week I was seduced
into watching a slide ware presentation of a product that promised to provide
collaboration services to it users. For the nth time, I was sorely disappointed
when the presentation was over.
So many products that promise collaboration
features are nothing more than web based file sharing products. File sharing
has been around forever. For me, file sharing goes back to the days
of shared directories on Novell and shared folders on MACs. For me, file
sharing means making a file available to others to read and learn from.
Sure you can use these newer file sharing software programs to make your
files available for editing by others but if you create and edit the files
with other software like a word processing or spreadsheet program, are
the collaboration features being provided by the file sharing program or
the word processing program? I contend its the latter.
For me collaboration means working together
with others to produce a final result, not just making the final result
available to others. So what features make up collaborative applications?
My answer is those features that allow people to work as they would if
they were co-located - working on the same campus; in the same building;
in the same office or conference room.
IM, web and video conferencing systems
allow users to work as though they are in the same office or conference
room. They can carry on a conversation, edit and create the same documents
and presentations, or minimally look at the same materials simultaneously
and discuss them. People who work in the same building or the same office
complex don't always collaborate face to face. They may come together intermittently,
have a discussion and then go off to tackle separate action items. Each
time they come together they are updated on the progress of the others
working on the project, and the project itself is updated to a new state.
Collaborative applications that simulate
the way users work when they are co-located in the same building or office
complex, provide a way for the users to interact with each other and information.
They can add to the information, rearrange the information, take-away incorrect
or unnecessary information, discuss the information. They can do this either
synchronously or asynchronously, and each person working on the project
can see its status any time they want to.
So does this mean that file sharing
has no place in a collaborative application? Well no. Information sharing
is part of collaboration. File sharing's role is to support the collaborative
effort , not to be such a focal point that its considered collaboration
by itself.
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