Collaboration

Collaboration: two or more individuals working together in a coordinated manner, more or less as equal partners, sharing knowledge, learning and building consensus to achieve more than what any one of them could accomplish on their own.

This is what collaboration means to me. I would say that I have an “alliance” with many people … I’m paid to … but I collaborate with very few. You don’t have to be equal in the same spaces but you have to all put in equal effort otherwise its just “helping”. If two authors collaborate to co-author a paper and another person supplies them some information, it doesn’t mean that this third person collaborated with the other two. You also have to be willing to have your ideas transformed or evolved or even truncated. Consensus is one of my favorite words and here is my favorite definition that hangs on my wall. Also note that it doesn’t mean “hanging out” or “comparing notes” with people either in a community or in the hallway … you have to have some focus, some end to achieve.

The Means To: To enable collaboration you are going to need communication from face-to-face to around-the-world electronically. Some methods will facilitate with less friction but even the old horse-carried letters of times past provided enough facility to collaborate (just took at the American Revolution). If the collaboration is intellectual (not a painting, statue, or other construction), then you will probably need some place to write it down or record the results … from paper or whiteboard to electronic media. In fact, recording iterations so that you can go back are also handy. I believe that “community” across our company might lead to more possible collaboration with more diverse contributors. More diverse contributors collaborating might lead to more innovation.

Not to be confused with: Many times people confuse the meaning with the enablement tools. Collaboration can be done anywhere with most anything. A Wiki is not collaboration. People who use a Wiki are not necessarily collaborating. A Wiki might make it easier to collaborate over time and distance but unless there is an exchange of ideas and thought and a new result then there is no collaboration. If I write this blog entry and you agree then there is confirmation. If I write this blog and you disagree then there is consternation. If I correct or add to this definition here or in another place because of your comments then that might be collaboration.