Technology innovation and policy: The power of "we"

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It's about time, emotion, and precision: Everyone has seen people collaborate, but how much of collaboration is actually productive? To a certain extent most of collaboration is worthless, and impinges productivity.

This isn't to say that collaboration isn't worthwhile; however, you must discern what adds to the whole or detracts from it. Virtually every species is social, but we cannot regard that social aspect as being productive. I've been in 1 hour meetings with 10 people where only about .5 person hours was required for the goal to be achieved; this is the case in every organizatin around the world. People like to talk face-to-face, but they hate to be locked into a very precise discussion as though everyone is reading from a predefined script.

The key to next-gen collaboration is to provide a framework/structure that guides people without having a face-to-face meeting...then have a collaboration party at the end of the work-week for a purely social event, or perhaps even semi-weekly. Spending $300K on a virtual system is certainly less expensive than a private plan, time, hotel, rental, food, etc. but it is still more expensive than the right type of collaboration. In the end people want to accomplish a goal and socialize. Every wonder why "watercooler" talk is more interesting than meetings and why, in the absense of a "watercooler", meetings fulfill that need. Video collaboration, though interesting, will soon become an annoyance and instead of productivity becoming the byproduct it will become the obstacle.; Posted by: THEE WOLF Posted on: 10/12/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use