Tool coevolution refers to the ongoing cycle of improving tools to support collaborative processes, and refining processes to exploit new possibilities created by the tools. Since 2002, we’ve worked to understand and facilitate this coevolution of collaborative tools and processes.
Our philosophy of tool design and our roadmap for improving tool interoperability is described in Eugene Eric Kim’s “A Manifesto for Collaborative Tools” (March 2004). Much of our design philosophy is steeped in the work of computer pioneer and advisory board member, Doug Engelbart.
Our collaboratories play an important role in our efforts to facilitate coevolution. We use those collaboratories to test new ideas with real communities. We then encourage developers to incorporate those learnings into their tools. Our collaboratory infrastructure is made up of several different open source tools, some of which we wrote ourselves, and we contribute all of our improvements back to the community.
The most prominent projects to come out of our tools research are PurpleWiki and HyperScope. You can read more extensively about our work and participate in the process at our Forge.
