Research
Enabling collaboration for companies throughout the world

A Definition of Collaboration Technology

October, 2006

A common definition of collaboration is “working jointly on an activity or project” (Oxford Dictionary). This definition, while accurate, does not clarify what collaboration means in the context of enterprise hardware and software. And that is because just about every enterprise application consists of people working together on an activity or project. If I send you a spreadsheet for revisions, is Microsoft Excel now a collaboration tool? If a team works together on account receivables, is SAP AR a collaboration platform? Is your phone a collaboration technology? Maybe..

Technology is never as neatly compartmentalized as we would like and there is a lot of overlap. And that overlap is increasing due to the importance of coordinating activities between people, obtaining cooperation within large groups, and improving real-time communication. That overlap is often referred to as “collaboration”: Technology that brings people together in order to work towards a common goal through the optimal sharing of organized content.

A Document Management system is not a collaboration tool, but it is often used within the context of collaboration. It is one way of delivering information in order to help people work together.

So there are a number of ways of using technology to bring people together, but most rely on a method of sharing or communicating information. We know that information can be “Pushed” or “Pulled”, “Asynchronous” or “Synchronous”, broadcast to everyone or personalized to the individual. Some examples of these collaboration technologies and their role in communication is below:

Collaboration is much more than just technology. But understanding how technology is used in an organization can be a useful diagnostic tool for understanding symptoms such as “information overload” or “lack of coordination”. Different situations are going to make use of different technology, and over reliance on one can cause problems. Oftentimes the tools we have at our disposal dictate the terms of collaborating with coworkers, particularly in large organizations.