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