In my experience working with social media and collaboration tools, people often claim—perhaps fairly, perhaps not so—to be overwhelmed and confused by the tools available to get the job done. “First you wanted me to contribute to the knowledge management system, then you wanted me contribute to the wiki and start a team blog. Now you are asking me to participate in (insert x technology, platform, or initiative here).” Get it all the time. Without fail.
But to twist a phrase a bit, I’d prefer having enough tools in my toolbox to do a wide variety of tasks. You can’t really use a screwdriver to hammer a nail, nor can you use a saw to drill a hole. So why do we insist on thinking that just one collaboration tool is enough to fit every problem? Rather, it comes down to helping people understand how to select the proper tool or tools (yes it often takes more than one) to succeed. I think there are three key factors to question when considering collaboration venues:
Where’s your audience? Readers of this blog will know that I think that rallying participants is key to collaboration. But, you can’t organize a party without picking a venue that people can actually get to, right? Considering the proper environment is absolutely crucial for tool selection for this reason. Working in an eRoom on your corporate intranet doesn’t really work if you want to work with people outside of your organization who aren’t going to be able to get to the site.
What’s your goal? A second and equally important question when considering what collaboration tool to use is to determine what your goal is. Are you building a house or digging a hole? Are you drafting a document with 10 other people in 5 time zones or is your team creating a library for new hires? Different tools have different strengths, period.
How open can I be? Privacy and security are key concerns in this age; everyone knows that (though often people will hide unnecessarily…). So for a lot of collaborative projects, there are real issues that need to be considered when selecting the venue. Just like the CIA isn’t going to collaborate on Wikipedia (that’s why there’s Intellipedia…), organizations have real reasons not to work in the open, even behind their own firewall. Personal Identifiable Information, legal concerns, etc are real and need to be considered when selecting a venue.
So What’s the Best Tool for the Job?
I think that equipped with these key questions to consider and a technology-agnostic approach to tool selection (come on, at least TRY to be objective) paired with a decent knowledge of the available tools, can help collaborators make informed decisions about where and how to collaborate. Short of that, it’s just not possible to make a blanket recommendation: after all, you know what you do better than I ever could!
Social Consulting 