I had a look at the Google Wave demonstration from the recent Google I/O conference. The full presentation is more than 1 hour long and as each feature rolls on to the next you start to realise that you’re seeing a glimpse into a mind altering way of interacting with people anywhere at any time.
Anyone who still thinks that technology is the major impediment to effective collaboration and cooperation between groups of people is about to have this well worn excuse permanently removed. As often happens, the technology has just taken a step beyond our current ability to assimilate it. It’s not that it’s difficult to use – that’s the easy part because it’s a lot like using the tools we’re already familiar with. The hard part is going to be the move from your current perspective of what ‘co-operation’ means in practice to a view in which there is an ‘always on’, transparent and traceable network of interaction between you and your colleagues.
I don’t think it matters if this is an inherently ‘good’ thing – it’s inevitable. Whether it’s going to be Google’s Wave technology or Microsoft’s or something else, most people (particularly those in the business of management) are driven by a belief that being connected to more people more quickly will lead them to being better informed and hence more valuable.
As someone who has seen previous ‘waves’ of technology becoming mainstream in business over the past 30 years, my sense is that this next wave of communication technology will accelerate the dawning realisation that the major hurdle of collaboration isn’t technology – it’s the challenge of establishing an effective, shared, or at least ‘good enough’, understanding and achieving mutually accountable agreements between collaborators.
We have an opportunity to learn from the experience of early adopters of this ‘new’ technology – groups which use wiki’s, messaging, blogs, tweats etc. often find that the volume of conversation goes up, but the effectiveness of collaboration doesn’t improve. The next step, I believe, is to turn certain conversations into more explicit, governed forms of collaboration.
In much the same way that the use of contracts grew out of the evolution of loose conversational agreements, this new medium of communication will also have a more formal side. The tension between the creative, individualistic use of communication technology and the more disciplined representation of a group’s interests will need to be addressed if we are to harness the power of groups to achieve directed, holistic outcomes.
In other words, we will need a way to manage collaboration and that will require a new management perspective. The good news is that it won’t require any major technology breakthrough or significant capital investment – it’s here now and it’s cheap. This should allow us to concentrate all of our efforts on the development of a management discipline for collaboration governance.
As collaboration becomes a core capability, people will see that it’s not being connected that counts – it’s being a valued contributor who enables others to achieve their goals.
