Collaborating? Communing? Conversing? Twittering?

What the heck is it that we do with social media?  In my mind there are a number of things that apply:

- Talking
- Conversing
- Publishing
- Collaborating
- Planning
- Exchanging
- Referencing
- Promoting
- Befriending

I started thinking about collaboration because a colleague - who I had recently shared a story about why Twitter was so powerful - came up to me later and was quite insistent that social media is simply a continuation of where 'Collaborative' technologies leave off.  On one hand I agree - they often are used to further the same goals: link people, disseminate information faster, encourage collaboration (little c).  On the other hand, there are some significant gaps and differences between email and team rooms and social media.

I asked my Twitter friends how collaborating and social media were different and here's what I got in response:

mukund   @rhappe they r all buzzwords :)
TalentSynch   @rhappe Collaboration can happen without social networking/computing but don't think GOOD social networking can thrive w/out collaboration
SamLawrence   @rhappe People think email is collaborating. Social software connotes an open-dialog-driven collaboration.
SamLawrence   @rhappe It's more than nomenclature as you know. :)
tomhumbarger   @rhappe - to me, it feels like collaboration is more of an internal company 'thing' and...
tomhumbarger   @rhappe - ...and that social computing is more of an external, outside the firewall phenomena...they are moving together, but not yet...         
tomhumbarger   @rhappe - maybe I feel collaboration is an internal feature as that is one of the value props that we use at iRise, but it's sharing of work 
jstorerj   @rhappe imho, social computing is just one type of collaboration, limited by the fact that it's confined to occur with a "computing" context
jstorerj   @rhappe agree that collaboration occurs across many different constituencies & existing mental models dictate types of collab that work
stoweboyd   @rhappe I disagree about collaboration as umbrella: it's so rooted in 90s thinking that its best to consider social tools as a new paradigm
vanhoosear   @rhappe on your earlier question, I see collaboration as a subset of social computing
rsims   @rhappe different things. Collaboration doesn't even require a computer and e.g. Twitter is social computing but not collaboration
mibdepot   @rhappe I started saying that social computing must be a subset of Collaboration then wondered which came first the chicken or the egg

It is clearly not very clear what the relationship is between collaboration and social computing.  As buzzwords, Collaboration has connotations that are quite a bit more structured than what people typically mean when they use social media or social computing lingo.  As a word collaboration is simply working with someone else on an initiative...which can be quite small and discrete...and offline. And Social media can simply connote a tool used for dialog/conversation - without collaboration happening at all.

One of the things that I think differentiates the two most dramatically is this: you cannot create a team workspace if a) you don't have a team and b) you don't have an agenda/goal. So much of work is about having an idea (not a project or a goal), discussing its feasibility, prioritizing, and figuring out who should be on the team or how to execute it.  Often you want to pull in people within the organization that you don't actually know personally.  And these ideas can be customer requests, new product ideas, new approaches to a problem, new ways to present your product or service, new people your company should know, and on and on - they touch every department and team in the company.  Where do those conversations happen?  It has to be on an open network that everyone has access to...with information filtering tools to help individuals find relevant conversations, content, and people.

Once ideas become more than a glimmer and have an interested group of people, a goal, and some initial feasibility...well then they can use - either inside the social network or not - a team workspace.

I think I'm with @TalentSynch on this one - collaboration can certainly happen without social media but good enterprise social media efforts cannot thrive without collaboration.

What do you think?

 

Comments

[Sam Lawrence]

Buzzwords are a drag. Sort of a necessary evil as we pull stuff apart and put it back together again.

One term that bugs me is "Social Media." I only use that word when I'm describing:
1. The new media industry (like blogging, podcasting).
2. Media types (photos, videos).

With respect to your post, I think everything in on a continuum. The biggest recent shift delineates between addressable, closed communication (email) and social software (like this blog). Email is sending a letter to someone, maybe adding a few more. This blog is open. You haven't addressed it to anyone. Twitter starts open and you have to gradually direct it.

So Social Software is open and allows for dialog. It's also where you look to see what's happening.

Those aren't things you do with email. Or a file server. Or a calendar.

The truth is, we've had a couple of decades of individual productivity tools which haven't reinforced collaborative behavior. For the, the biggest part of the social software movement is unlearning that and learning how to effectively work with other people. To do that, we're going to need something new.

[Rachel Happe]

Thanks Sam - that adds a slightly different dimension to the conversation - i.e. are we really 'individual contributors' or should we be training ourselves to create content openly. I think this may divide the population a bit - there are some people who feel very strongly about 'owning' their ideas and getting credit for them and the other people who are more oriented towards solving problems who don't really care as much about the lineage of an idea. This topic gets to copyright issues, etc. if extrapolated out. I think on the enterprise side you get more of the later type but the former exists too. People should get credit for good ideas but most good ideas don't happen in isolation either so...not sure where I come down on that issue.

[Mike Walsh]

One interesting observation about Social (Media) Networking is that Collaboration Teams form instantly and gather and disperse in hours, minutes or even seconds. A team can quickly build around an idea, collaborate, drive a solution and disperse within minutes.

I believe that this happens because the 1) social tools that enable this 2) as well as the expectations of the participants.

Everyone understands, more or less, that participation may be sporadic and unstructured. The combination of new rules of engagement and great tools as enablers drive more efficient collaboration and faster results.
@mwalsh on Twitter

[Lawrence Liu]

Ah, so even Sam has finally come around to see collab and social as part of a continuum. :-) Collab is something that a group of people do to achieve a common objective/deliverable. Teams can be small or large, but the work is pretty focused. Social by way of ad hoc groups and communities or completely open-ended content and feedback (i.e. social media) is for people who share a common interest. A subset of the community might start to collaborate from some idea burst, which turns their common interest into a possible common objective. The key value of thinking about collab and social as a continuum is that people outside of the collab team can become aware of relevant info/people/processes, so they won't have to reinvent the wheel when they collaborate on something similar at a different time/place. There are ways to integrate e-mail (collab focused) with forums (social focused), so it shouldn't be an either/or decision for companies or users. Ultimately, I posit that everything comes down to SEAMLESSLY INTEGRATED CONTEXTUAL AWARENESS, which will require consolidated tools and solutions that can span the continuum from individual productivity to collab to social.

Lawrence Liu
Microsoft SharePoint Senior Technical Product Manager for Community, Collab, Social Computing, Accessibility, and Adopt [yeah, that's indeed the longest title in the world :-)]

[Rachel Happe]

Thanks for the comment and stopping by Microsoft SharePoint Senior Technical Product Manager for Community, Collab, Social Computing, Accessibility, and Adoption guy. phew :)

I wrote a document that differentiates 'Organic' communities (those that spring up based on a common interest) from 'Directed' (those that have a defined goal & members) communities a while back - http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=208393

I think the key for enterprises is having a solution that spans the entire spectrum...and I haven't seen that yet. There is a maturity of conversation that evolves...and needs more structure and privacy as it does. I feel like we now get one or the other.