I disagree with David's explanation for collaborative technology non-use in his blog post Hierarchy and Collaboration in the Globe . He says "The issue isn't business efficiency but the maintenance of power. Collaboration software does indeed hyperlink the hierarchy. And that's just plain scary to The Establishment, the status quo and/or The Man."
In fact, lots of organizations are extremely interested in collaborative tools now. The main reason they can't successfully adopt collaborative technology is because you can't get people to all go use new technology at once, yet in the face of simple email and browser use, that's what's necessary: the new technology usage has to be unanimous. If one person in a group can't or won't use the new tech, the forum reverts to the least common denominator -- ubiquitous email. The Boston Globe article David cites says just this:
But two big challenges face Boston's merchants of collaboration software. First is the need for the technology to show real business results real fast - rather than just ''greasing'' the way work gets done in an intangible way. Some people believe that e-mail will remain the dominant collaborative technology, and it will be hard for other, more complex software packages to supplant it.
Plug: that's why QuickTopic lets you collaborate using only email (if you want) or just email and a browser (and there's a new feature coming that integrates it even tighter with email). Working with email -- so well that people don't even need to know they're doing more than just emailing -- is the best way to get technology adopted. That way, if one person uses it, all are using it -- it's at the opposite end of the spectrum from tools that demand unanimous use to be useful.
June 17, 2002 11:29 PM