What is "Collaboration" ?

When I was working at Morgan Stanley, I once asked my supervisor, what's the difference between "Teamwork" and "Collaboration". They sounds pretty similar, a bunch of people work together, for a common goal; So why and when do we wanna use the word "Collaboration"?

The definition of "Collaboration" can be found on Wikipedia, and dictionary. "Collaboration is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together in an intersection of common goals — for example, an intellectual endeavor^{[1] [2]} that is creative in nature^[3]—by sharing knowledge, learning and building consensus. " - from Wikipedia.

But more important, the clue of the difference between these two words can be found here: "In particular, teams that work collaboratively can obtain greater resources, recognition and reward when facing competition for finite resources.^[5]Collaboration is also present in opposing goals exhibiting the notion of adversarial collaboration, though this is not a common case for using the term." -Wikipedia.

My supervisor answered like this: "Teamwork is that a group of people work together, but not necessary collaboratively; they can contribute their own part, without interact with other team member"; "and Collaboration, is that a group of people work collaboratively, means that they have to interact a lot, to generate the end result."

For me, the difference can be translated in another way: Teamwork could be something you can collect those contribution by individuals, and put them together in the end; But Collaboration is that the whole team work together and interact with the time line of the project, to generate the end results. Here is what Wikipedia says: "Structured methods of collaboration encourage introspection of behavior and communication.^[4] These methods specifically aim to increase the success of teams as they engage in collaborative problem solving. "

Hope the explanation of Collaboration could provide you some idea of how it works.

To be continue.......

Virtual and Real World Blending: Web 2.0 & Physical Collaboration

Some might be doubtful, what would web 2.0 really make changes to our daily life? Those information stored on the Internet, can they really blend into the physical world? Here's a good example of web 2.0 makes difference to our life: Youtube Symphony Orchestra

Institution v.s. Collaboration

This is a good speech about the definition of collaboration in Web 2.0 era by Clay Shirky, one of my adviser in NYU ITP. Enjoy it.

About this blog

This blog is about the art of collaboration, which I learned in international enterprises, in socail networks, and in my family life.