Michael Sampson has a great article at Plantronics about how important people are to collaboration and how tools need to get out of the way. I’ve said that a number of times but Mr. Sampson does a better job clearly and concisely stating the case. His opening paragraph says it best:
With the many types of collaboration tools available, it’s tempting to think that you have to use a certain collaboration tool in order to be “collaborating.” This line of thinking – which comes across strongly from vendors of the newer collaboration tools, as well as early adopters who get a buzz out of promoting new things – says that if you aren’t using a team workspace, a social community, activity streams, or screen sharing then you aren’t collaborating. Phooey.
Now where he gets interesting is his description of a friction profile and how it impacts your ability to collaborate and interact with people.
For example, if you travel to hold meetings in person (and meetings can be part of a collaborative activity), the friction profile of this includes the stress of travel, lost hours due to extra time on the road and waiting at airports, post-trip malaise as you get back to a normal routine and level of pre-travel productivity, and the out-of-pocket costs of train, plane, and taxi fares. That’s a lot of friction for a meeting, and while it’s necessary to incur it at times, it isn’t the only way to meet. As one example, web conferencing vendors offer screen sharing services at low monthly prices, and these enable you to meet from wherever you are, talk, and see what the other people are referring to by looking at a representation of their screen. Screen sharing has a different friction profile compared to a face-to-face meeting – such as having to work harder to make yourself understood (especially when the audio quality is poor), lost communication by not being physically present (you can’t read their body language), and the need to have certain software installed on your computer or iPad. You can collaborate either way – it’s just you have a different friction profile.
It’s worth reading the entire article as you think about what tools reduce rather than increase your profile.
