Collaborate/ collaboration... The more I think about this word, the more I like it. According to Merriam Webster, the word collaboration comes from the Latin word collaborare meaning "to labor together," and has three common meanings:
1 : to work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavor
2 : to cooperate with or willingly assist an enemy of one's country and especially an occupying force
3 : to cooperate with an agency or instrumentality with which one is not immediately connected.
Although the second definition is not very positive, numbers 1 and 3 definitions are just beautiful, aren't they? Thinking about collaboration as an evolutionary desirable trait, we can recognize how every successful country/government/movement or organization depends upon collaboration to bring people together in order to more easily and effectively accomplish a shared goal.
In fact, history and popular culture are full of expressions which reflect our views about collaboration, or the lack thereof. Consider the expression attributed to the English dramatist, John Heywood - "Many hands make light work," or the contradictory common saying "Too many cooks spoil the broth." When reflecting about my recent experiences with teamwork and collaboration on various projects, I believe it is fair to say that I experienced varying degrees of interaction with my team members on many of our projects, ranging from frustrating to enlightenment.
For example, Steve and I tried to work out a collaborative arrangement via email exchanges on podcasting for a start-up venture, but due to time constraints and individual workloads, we were unable to successfully complete our ideas. In the glossary contributions, the items submitted by many of our colleagues inspired me to look for and find complementary ideas that I found to be personally compelling, so I suppose you could say that the glossary contributions led to an indirect collaboration through shared ideas.
The same holds true for my writeboard and co-ment experiences, as I was able to read and respond to the many ideas and writings of my colleagues. I found that their thoughts and comments inspired me to explore different avenues than the ones I may have chosen of my own volition.
As for the scheduled chat sessions, I was not able to take advantage of any of them due to my work schedule, which is, admittedly, a disadvantage for me in this program. I am required to perform varied hours shift work, and often work 10 and 12 hours days, frequently until 11pm or 12 am. In each section of this program, including this segment, the preferred meeting time for chats chosen by the majority always seems to be around 7-730 pm, which keeps me from participating in the chats. Even when I try to work around it, my work schedule is too unpredictable to allow for equal participation in projects with my colleagues via chat.
In another instance of attempted collaboration, Lauren was kind enough to give several of us invites to Google Wave, an online collaboration tool, and we tried to set up a time for several of us to get together to create a commentary that we could use in this project, but even though I timed it to use my break-time at work, I was unable to load the site using my blackberry, and we are not allowed to use the work computers for personal reasons, so Lauren and Isao were able to work without my contributions. (See our initial attempts, examples below)
The one area where I felt we were able to collaborate effectively, albeit asynchronously, was in the forums, where we were able to share discoveries, ask questions and receive clarification from each other on many topics. I always feel that collaboration is worthwhile, because when working with others, each endeavor is as unique as the individuals involved, and shared work often develops organically from the contributions of the team. I would welcome the opportunity to fully develop a project using an interactive teamwork environment, where the team could create the project and modify it from start to finish. I am looking forward to the final project that develops from our joint contributions, because after all, human agency depends upon collaboration, and provides such rich rewards that it is doubtful whether people could have survived without it.
In summary, collaboration is a vital part of our lives, from both a personal perspective and a professional one, and although most of us would like to believe that we alone are the masters of our own destinies, the truth of the matter is that we depend upon the collaborative work of others from the moment we are born until the moment we die. Nearly every act we are capable of has been possible because of the work of others, and nearly everything we do is for the agency of others as well. The better collaborators we become, the more successfully we navigate our way through life.
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