Collaboration’s Engine & Heart

Getting ready for a short presentation yesterday I spent some time thinking about collaboration. And I had a sort of epiphany. Here are some quick thoughts…

SHARING is the engine behind collaboration. It is what makes it work. If your org has a culture of hording it will be difficult to collaborate.

DISCOVERY is the heart of collaboration. When we share, others discover. This is what we are trying to do when we collaborate. There are two types of collaboration. Both are expressed by formulas:

1+1=4

I have one piece of information. You have another. We share those and I have two, you have two, thus four. We both have discovered a new piece of personal knowledge. Not that the information was new, but that it was shared. Examples of this is most of the discussion on forums. Some don’t know, others shared. (Hereafter, this formula is referred to as “=4″) This post is of this type.

1+1=5

I have one piece of information. You have another. We share those and I have two, you have two, thus four. But as we combine these four, a fifth is created. We have both discovered a new piece of group knowledge. Although this is a ‘higher’ form of collaboration, it necessarily is not always the goal. Sometimes =4 is all that is needed. But when we need to do more than share knowledge and solve a problem or create something new, this model is needed. (Hereafter, this formula is referred to as “=5″)

Examples: Wikinomic’s classic GoldCorp story: “I have information, you have information. If we put those together we can create new information.” This is the model behind the site innocentive.com.

How can your org collaborate within your org using E2.0 tools?

=4: There are so many blog posts which share information and others ask questions and comment.  There are a ton of other ways, but, unfortunately I don’t have time to type them all out.

=5: If there is a difficulty you are running in to, share it. Others will share their ideas. You may be able to take their ideas and create a third idea that is tailored to your idea.

How can your org collaborate with our customers using E2.0 tools? Two quick examples…

=4: A community around any topic is perfect. Anyone have a question? Anyone can answer. All about sharing.

=5: The Pilot (or Beta) community shares information and then comes up with solutions neither had thought of before.

Accelerant

If I have a process I need to fix, I might pull in four people in a meeting and we can all try to come up with a solution. What is wrong with that? There is a good chance we all have similar skills, industry and operational knowledge and experience. This limits =5 type discovery because we are all coming at the problem from the same perspective.

What to do? Invite more people with a diverse knowledge and experience base. This is what E2.0 tools can help with. More participants, more perspectives, more potential unique and quality solutions.