eekim.com: EEK Speaks

Mon, Feb 26, 2007

Collaboration as a System #

I spent this past Saturday in Sebastopol "tutoring" GailTaylor, ToddJohnston, and TiffanyVonEmmel on online CollaborativeTools. I lured MatthewOConnor into helping by boasting of Gail, Todd, and Tiffany's deep thinking about and practice of collaboration. (LVC)

One of our exercises was to walk through all of our respective digital workspaces, demonstrating how we read and wrote email, and worked with online tools. I had gotten some idea of how Matthew worked when we paired at the Wikithon earlier this month, but I was still blown away by his walkthrough. He's really thought deeply about his work processes and has optimized his online workspace accordingly. (LVD)

Matthew expressed surprise that he was the only one who had done this, especially since I had proclaimed these folks to be gurus. I didn't have a chance to discuss this with him on Saturday, so I thought I'd post some thoughts about that here. (LVE)

To be good at collaboration, you have to treat it as a system. That system includes things like communication, community, KnowledgeManagement, learning, and leadership. (LVF)

Most CollaborativeTools companies are either in the communication or the KnowledgeManagement business. They're usually selling pipes, PIMs, or document management tools. All of those things have something to do with collaboration, but they are not in and of themselves collaboration. Then again, no tools are. A hammer is a tool for hammering, but it is not itself hammering. (LVG)

When I think about HighPerformanceCollaboration, I envision groups with excellent GroupInformationHygiene. Ideally, you'd also like every member of the group to have outstanding PersonalInformationHygiene (like Matthew), but it's not a prerequisite. You'd like to see every member to be past a certain threshold of competence for all aspects of the system, but I don't think it's necessary for everyone to be great at all those things. On a great basketball team, you'd like everyone to be in good shape and have good fundamentals, but some players are going to be superior shooters while others will be great rebounders. It's not necessary, nor realistic, nor possibly desirable to have 12 MagicJohnsons on a team. (LVH)

Implicit in my OneSmallChange post is that there is no one thing. I can think of a number of small, concrete changes that could result in significant improvements in collaboration. This is one of the main reasons why PatternLanguages -- collections of named, concrete patterns -- are fundamental to TheBlueOxenWay. (LVI)

PersonalInformationHygiene is a critical pattern, because it fosters trust. My advice to groups with trust issues would be to eschew squishy exercises and look at people's PersonalInformationHygiene instead. However, past a certain level, I don't see great PersonalInformationHygiene as being the primary hallmark of a great collaborator. (LVJ)

/collaboration | Posted at 11:41am

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EEK Speaks

A blog about collaboration, community-building, and the various goings-on at Blue Oxen Associates, with occasional digressions on food and other vital matters.