Thursday, February 08, 2007

Collaboration vs CollabIoration

Collaboration. What exactly is it?

The word collaboration is clichéd. People use the word every day. What many people mean most of the time when they say collaboration is “Hey, if you’re not helping me get this right, you aren’t collaborating”. They put themselves at the center of the word collaboration. CollabIoration is more like it, as far as they are concerned. What might be a better articulation? Just letting my thoughts flow here.

It is a combination of two key things - independent thinking and true conversation. The key qualities of a conversation that epitomizes collaboration would be to listen, re-consider, remodel, adjust, amend, admit, apologize, understand, question, challenge, agree, disagree, share, express, quote, refer, analyze, imagine, and conclude. So, it is not easy as we think it is to collaborate. Emotions and egos run amuck most of the time. Do you collaborate?

2 comments:

Chris Collison said...

Hi Nimmy,

Good post! Remonds me of articles about the "We/Me" dynamic.

You'll like this one from Bernie DeKoven - aka Dr Fun

http://www.deepfun.com/weme.htm
Cheers,
Chris

http://chriscollison.wordpress.com

Nimmy said...

Hi Chris! :)
Good to 'see' you again! :)
I looked up Dr.Fun and enjoyed reading about Mewe! CoLiberation is a cool term! So, we ought to progress on this challenging journey from CollabIoration to CoLiberation!! :) Thanks a ton for the link! I will be going back to it for more fun! :D