One word popping up very regularly in my inquiry into collaborability is “collaboration”, which should be to no surprise…. To me collaboration is merely a technical term; it indicates two or more people acting together (period). Why they do this or how or whether they do this directly, deliberately, structured and simultaneously or implicitly and with a time shift are “only” manifestations of the many ways people collaborate. NB I deliberately avoided to use the word “working together” as this has a connotation with labour related collaboration and people are doing much more together then working alone.
The word “collaboration” is not a neutral word though. I have noticed that many of the people I discuss collaborability with, or when dissecting their reactions to my blog posts, do have a specific “preloaded” idea on collaboration.
First of all the direct way of collaboration – either work or politics related – is central to the notion held by everybody I have been talking to. Collaborability does cover direct collaboration but also covers the implicit ways of collaboration. Actually much of the collaborability mechanisms and how we as humans behave as individuals and as groups can be assigned to implicit collaboration. Describing this implicit collaboration and its dynamics/mechanisms is the main part of my inquiry for this has not been covered consistently as far as I have been able to establish. It is also the most difficult part for it holds a perspective to realty that not to many people seem to have.
Secondly the word collaboration always seems to trigger the “we have to work together” mantra. Depending on peoples (political) stance in life people they see this as very positive or pretty negative connotation. Some are just shrugging their shoulders for in their view it is important to live life to the individual max… One could indicate this as neutral but actually it is the strongest demotion of collaborability possible. Either way, the word collaboration itself is strongly coloured.
Due to the connotation with “we have to work together” collaborability can easily be regarded as a “soft” subject. But as we all know people working together can lead to monstrous deeds. Or when balances are not met our mechanisms of collaboration can derail massively.
The rise of collaborability is a process of transformation in time. I am investigating this process and the underlying mechanisms. I have to keep on reminding myself to be aware that I have to bridge the gap between the connotations held by others on collaboration and the way I use it technically in my inquiry.