collaboration :: cooperation :: coordination

Coordination, Cooperation & CollaborationTools & Modalities for Collaborative Planning & Policy-making

Participation CampNew York, 2009

Mark ElliottChief Consultant & DirectorCollabforge

3 June 2009 :: MDBA :: Canberra

Starting At The Beginning

What is participation?

Dictionary: ‘to take part’

Starting At The Beginning

‘Participation’ must get more defined in order to:• to map & augment existing processes• develop new processes• build & or match tools to suit

What is participation?

Understanding Participation

Understanding Participation

Collective Activity Process Output

Understanding Participation

Collective Activity Process Output

Understanding Participation

Why are we here?

Understanding Participation

Why are we here?

Understanding Participation

Why are we here?

Understanding Participation

Opportunity to engage:• ideas surrounding this event?• presenters like me?• people next to you?

Understanding Participation

Potential lies in the space that is our commonalities & differences:• ideas• experiences• resources• connections

Understanding Participation

This space is diminished by our proximity here, now.

Understanding Participation

This space is a relational space.

Coordination

This space is a relational space -defined by the way it brings together

peopledisparate

ideasmatter

Coordination

Collective Activity Process Output

Coordinationdisparate elements pulled into a

relational spacepatterns across disparate

elements emerge

Example: how a search engine uses keywords to bring together webpages and resources on the Internet.

Cooperation

Cooperation (process / set of instructions) provides for transactional exchange that leads

to an aggregation of value

• reciprocal altruism or recycling• captialism or communism• file sharing or social bookmarking• lining up for our groceries or traffic lights• representative democracy...

Cooperation

implicit or explicitconscious or unconscious

massive or microdesigned or evolved

proprietary or open sourcedemocratic or autocratic

cooperative processes can be

Cooperation

compliance of will

Enabler of cooperative process:

Understanding Participation

Collective Activity Process Output

Coordinationdisparate elements pulled into a

relational spacepatterns across disparate

elements emerge

Cooperationindividuals comply to process /

set of instructions aggregated value of

individual contributions

Examples: a company & profit, a survey & results, voting & elected politician, taxation & social service.

Collaboration

Collaboration = collective creation

What do we typically mean by ‘collaboration’?

‘working together towards a shared objective’

Collaboration

Co-creation on part of a group of people with add/edit/delete rights to

the same pool of content.

Collaboration is:

Collaboration

Collective Activity Process Output

Coordinationdisparate elements pulled into a

relational spacepatterns across disparate

elements emerge

Cooperationindividuals comply to process /

set of instructions aggregated value of

individual contributions

Collaborationparticipants of a group add/edit/

delete same pool of content

co-created innovation representing a shared

understanding

Collaboration

Collaboration

Convergent production is a cognitive process whereby an agent seeks a single best solution

mathematics, logic, scientific method

Divergent production develops multiple solutions to the same problem domain

creative arts, lateral thinking, brainstorming

J. P. Guilford (1950; 1962)

Collaboration

To ‘consciously collaborate’ have to consider:

• What should we collaborate on?• How shall we do it?• medium, process, tools, etc

Negotiation in Collective Activity

Collaboration, cooperation & coordinationall require amounts of two types of negotiation.

Cultural negotiation: language, norms, beliefs, values (sociology)

Social negotiation: personal histories & relationships, personalities &

computability issues, reputation (psychology)

A collaborative system’s capacity for negotiation is directly proportional to the

robustness of its outcomes.

Negotiation in Collective Activity

Collective Activity Process Output Negotiation

Coordinationdisparate elements

pulled into a relational space

patterns across disparate elements

become visible

Low (cultural)

Cooperationindividuals comply to

process / set of instructions

aggregated value of individual

contributions

Medium(cultural, social)

Collaborationparticipants of a group add/edit/deletes same

pool of content

co-created innovation representing a shared

understanding

High(social, cultural)

Understanding Participation

Understanding Collaboration

Mass Collaboration

Recently, something important has happened:

we have broken through collaboration’s glass ceiling

wikis disintermediate social negotiation with creative contribution

Thank you!

Mark Elliott, Director & Chief Consultant+61 421 978 501Mark.Elliott@Collabforge.comTwitter: @MarkElliott