WHAT'S ALL THE FUSS ABOUT COLLABORATION SOFTWARE?

Here’s my thinking about collaboration software: you don’t need nearly as much of it as you think you do and you will need even less as time goes on.  Given the large emphasis on such solutions these days, I envision a number of perplexed looks on the faces of those of you who are reading this, so allow me to explain.

Many collaboration utilities (e.g., threaded messaging, document posting, calendaring) already are or are close to becoming commodities.  As a result, many software solutions that benefit from people collaborating with one another are integrating these features into their platforms. This fusion makes sense because if people are already engaged in the workflow of whatever software they are using, why make them leave that solution and open another simply to begin collaborating?

Yet, there are IT organizations out there that, because of their sunk investment in collaboration software, suggest or even force the disablement of collaboration utilities in other solutions.  “WHEN YOU NEED TO COLLABORATE, YOU WILL USE OUR CORPORATE STANDARD: [insert name of standard]!” 

“Yep, this makes good sense,” he said, his comments heavily laced with sarcasm.  Let’s force people to use a process that may not be intuitive because it is not within the flow of what they are already doing.  On top of that, let’s risk the possibility of people not following through on collaborating at all because they end up falling off the proverbial cliff when switching back and forth between systems.

The reality is that knowledge workers need to collaborate with one another ALL THE TIME.  Let individuals collaborate in the manner that makes the most sense to them at the point in time that they need to collaborate.  In one case, leveraging a standalone collaboration tool, such as a setting up a web-conference session, will best meet the need.  In another instance, being able to leverage a threaded discussion utility that is integrated into a specific type of solution will be the most efficient and effective path forward. 

If you go back to the beginning of this entry, you will notice that I was not suggesting that people will not need to collaborate moving forward.  I firmly believe that they will, and that their need to collaborate will only increase over time.  What I am suggesting is that the popularity of software solutions whose sole focus and value proposition is collaboration will decrease over time as these types of features continue to be effectively integrated into core solutions that can provide larger value to the workforce.

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