January 6, 2010 » 8:49 am
How is collaborating face-to-face different from collaborating online?
In attempting to answer this question, it’s easy to make generalizations. You can’t develop trust online. You can’t develop meaningful relationships online.
The problem is that actual experience contradicts these generalizations. Trusting, meaningful relationships are possible online. Online collaboration can be just as effective as face-to-face, and at [...]
Categories: News, Stories
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January 1, 2010 » 6:15 pm
Happy New Year, everyone! Welcome to the new decade!
This morning, I eschewed my usual routine of checking my email as soon as I woke up. I wanted to dictate how I kicked off the New Year. I wanted to be proactive, not reactive. So, I went for a run. It felt good. Now I feel [...]
Categories: Stories
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September 30, 2009 » 9:41 am
Last Thursday, I had the pleasure of finally meeting Beth Kanter in the flesh at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, where she is serving as a visiting scholar.
I’ve known of Beth and her work for years through the tight-knit nonprofit technology community, where she is a superstar. I’ve followed her on her blog, on [...]
Categories: Stories
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August 31, 2009 » 4:44 am
Today, The New York Times wrote about our work with the Wikimedia Foundation.
Noam Cohen speaks at Wikimania 2009. Photograph by Beatrice Murch.
Noam Cohen, who wrote the article, is someone who deeply understands the Wikimedia movement. (He has more edits on Wikipedia than I do.) In past articles about Wikipedia, he’s ably and concisely captured the [...]
Categories: Stories
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» 2:53 am
We’ve been blessed with amazing clients and projects throughout the years, and I’ve long wanted to write more about this work. Today, I want to talk about one of our clients: The Wikimedia Foundation.
I’m leading a year-long strategic planning process for the Foundation. We’re trying to figure out where Wikimedia should be in five years. [...]
Categories: Stories
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June 25, 2009 » 10:49 am
When I tell people that I’m in the collaboration business, most people stare politely and expectantly, waiting for me to explain what that means. Collaboration encompasses many things, and to really be in the business of improving collaboration, you have to address all of those things, both individually and in relation to each other. It’s [...]
Categories: Stories
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May 7, 2009 » 9:57 am
I used to write holiday cards religiously every year. I started when I was five years old, initially because my Mom forced me to. When I moved to a different junior high school, those holiday cards became one of my main sources of connection to my old friends, and I started to understand the value [...]
Categories: Stories
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April 29, 2009 » 10:36 am
Three years ago, I had a chance conversation with Terrell Russell, a researcher at the University of North Carolina. That conversation ended up having a profound impact on my thinking. Terrell is doing his dissertation work on something he calls Contextual Authority Tagging. It’s a fancy term for a simple idea: What others say about [...]
Categories: Stories
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April 17, 2009 » 8:26 am
Two important principles of good collaborative tool design are:
Augment patterns of collaborative behavior
Observe how people use your tools, and evolve them accordingly.
These principles sound straightforward, but they are rarely practiced, and I’m always thrilled when I meet people who do practice them. I had the pleasure of meeting one such person at WikiWednesday earlier this [...]
Categories: Stories
5 Comments »
April 13, 2009 » 7:54 am
I’ve enjoyed many of Doug Engelbart’s stories over the years, but my all-time favorite is about bike tricks. When he was a child, he and his brother used to challenge the other kids in the neighborhood to see who could do the most advanced tricks. According to Doug, there was always one trick that was [...]
Categories: Stories
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