Jon Husband

3.4.1 How can we know when web-based collaboration is appropriate or Not?

In terms of knowing when it is appropriate or not:

It depends upon the purpose of what are you doing, the numbers of people involved, the scale. But it’s useful
to remember that at a basic level just exchanging information, making decision, agreements- what to do, by
whom, by when, it’s all collaboration, really.

Most of these activities we carried out before by telephone or face-to-face whereas now the interactions now
all take place, immediately, on the web. It is taken for granted that there’s a basic level of collaboration that
is just a necessary condition getting things done. Beyond this basic taken-for-granted level of collaboration,
we then move in to designing what kinds of collaboration are likely to be most affective or not.

In today’s environment- when is it not appropriate?

There’s always a basic and fundamental problem when you increase the scale of collaboration - if you’re
using collaboration on any significant scale, you’ll be getting many different points of view. So you need
ways to aggregate, filter and make sense of the participation. This sense-making is necessary, so there are a
rane of techniques that are possible … moderation or face to face meetings to take things deeper or
mechanical text analytics such as natural language processing with filtering and clustering rules built in to the
algorithm(s). A significant part of the IT industry is dedicated to finding better ways to provide for support in
making decisions through ensuring that these kinds of capabilities continue to evolve in practical and useful
ways..

What are Barriers to web-based collaboration

The basic physical impediments are obstacles … for example, time zones create an obvious issue. (We’re
experiencing a mild degree of that in this interview)- but if you’re halfway across the world “their” night is
“your” day, and vice-versa.

Language and culture (shared understanding of terms, points of view, types of behaviour, etc.) can be
significant obstacles.

Broadband access, range of tools, relative computer literacy if large numbers of people are involved. This, in
my opinion, is one of key reasons for the on-going trend re: the simplification and greater usability of web-
based collaboration tools and services.

3.4.2 How can collaboration be designed to incentivize participation i.e. what governance structures
work best for collaborative projects in your experience?

Concentrating on governance structure:over the past 20 or 30 years there’s been a long –term trend, both with
and without the web, towards inclusion of people in decision making processes. This trend towards
democratization of information and decision making, (a large generality) has revealed the things that have
been shown time and again to motivate participation (don’t like the world incentivize) are 1) a clear and
shared purpose, and 2) clearly-defined values that people to which can attach their personal meaning and
purpose.

If the people involved in a collaboration share a purpose and share clearly stated values, that tends to create
and sustain a desire for participation in an issue. One of the phrases I’ve used in a number of essays and
presentations about living and working in a networked collaborative environment is: “our agreements are our
structures” … our negotiated agreements are in effect the structure of the work that is undertaken.

3.4.3 What is the role of motivation, vision and trust in successful collaboration – and what kind of
leadership is needed

The role of motivation , vision and trust in effective collaboration is non-negotiable. They’re necessary
conditions. Without any one of the three, participants are left wondering “what are we doing and why are we
doing it” ?

In terms of leadership: there are thousands of articles about command and control vs. some degree of letting
go of control. I coined a phrase that’s supplementary (or complementary)- champion and channel. Champion
ideas and channel resources to where ideas can take route, and then coordinate the activities and cultivate
progress. This is the kind of activity you see in a lot of progressive companies, they use their leaders and
leadership as champions and facilitators, and as coaches for supporting innovation, extending it throughout
an organization and into a market.

3.4.4 What are your recommendations for designing a business model around successful web based
collaboration? What is the value added for participants of collaboration, and how is that value realized

That’s a thorny question and I’ve seen it play out in front of us in a number of big domains: newspapers and
the other forms of mainstream media, and increasingly in exploring new forms of organizational
effectiveness in a now-networked world. What I would do always with respect to wondering about business
models is … go back to the purpose. Why are we doing what we’re doing, and what do we want to
accomplish ? Just making money is less and less satsfacory as an answer in a networked and more
transparent world.

New roles for new economy by Kevin Kelly- I think in the long run the rules that he suggested do pertain /
will pertain. There’s been for quite a few years more and more discussion of peer to peer, barter, gift
economies.

No one knows what the rules for business model are … by business model I mean revenue model that
demonstrates in a quantifiable manner what you want to do. But as a basic principle it’s about adding value to
things that people do for / with others, and need to do for themselves. That’s what people increasingly pay
for when there’s already a pretty sufficient infrastructure to meeting needs … so you need to think about what
are people doing and what do people need to do (when they are operating in a networked / collaborative
environment). How do you add value, and where do you find the point of friction - friction creates the
possibility for a transaction, the transaction represents the exchange of value, and that is what people pay for
at a pricing point that’ll be accepted. That’ll be the long tail theory in action, in a mass-customized world
wherein increasingly individuals are defining value somewhat differently than the next person.

It’s complicated, and we will see, I think, many different models, and a range of possibilities within models,
lots more variable pricing and forms of revenue related to levels of activity, etc.

Point of friction: let’s take an example of iTunes, of a business model essentially where the music industry is
built on collaboration, word of mouth, sharing recommendations and the music you find interesting … but if
you want to stay legal and buy a song iTunes is dominant player. Your wanting a song combined with their
ability to control release- that’s the point of friction where you charge. It’s where a want or need meets a
supplier. You always need to find that- there needs to be an exchange of value of sort.

In the web-based on collaboration people are still looking at that. There’s been a number of ongoing attempts
of shared revenue amongst participants and the community but there are no fast or hard rules. The rules are a
lot around intangibles and adding value.
No clear and commonly accepted answer.

3.4.6 What is the role of openness?

3.4.5 What are your recommendations regarding legalities for web-collaborators? Are the commons
always the answer? Do we have the legal structures available today to deal with international, web-
based collaboration on a grand scale?

Creative commons and other related organizations that have aspects of the legal structure as their concern. So
the mere creation and controversy caused by creative commons indicates we do not have the legal structure
available now. Obviously we have to operate within the legal structure that exists. It’s in ongoing flux at the
moment.

I think I’m not a legal expert so too many elements for me to be any clearer. Different cases will illuminate
the path over time.

There’s a principle of the web that’s important- a tendency towards openness. You see that in many ways all
around us. There has come to be a recognition that there’s an interconnected ecosystem (Web 2.0 shorthand
for an environment where many things plug in to many other things and enable many basic forms of easy
basic collaboration) - sharing and exchange of information that may result in a decision or some activity
happening after that exchange.

I think we’re going to see a lot of activity with respects to legal structures changing. There has to be.
Openness will keep pushing at what we’ve known until now.

3.4.7 What does your ideal e-collaboration tool look like? Do you have any favorite collaboration tools
that exist? How can we overcome the limitations of current collaboration technology?

No one knows what we really need- it piggy backs on last question in terms of openness. There are some
established tools: blogs, wikis, and things like twitter. They’re all just destinations based on the web where
text photos videos and voice are posted. I think an essential principle of this environment is its user centric-
PKM (personal knowledge management) you chose to keep a quiver of tools that you like to use as you learn
about others try them out- may incorporate into you (and your groups) work flow, or may not.

This is where “open” comes in- You want plug and play the four tools that you like to use into these
platforms, whereas I might have 5 or 6 tools that I like to use … only two of them are common to both of us.
Howeve, we will share a common platform or foundation for the collaboration. This type of dynamic
(personalization) will only increase in scope and size, and ease of use. We’ll start and get more and more
standard content formats. As the semantic web develops you’ll have standards develop as to how to link to
URL’s and uri’s

It’s mostly about flexibility, and a core principle is user choice and control.

Fei’s question with no limits:

I think we can see certain types of trends- there are a lot of organizations that have existing infrastructure
investments from SharePoint or IBM- need blug and play and API.

I think I still fully expect within 20 years certain we’ll have much more ubiquitous telepresence capabilities.
We see that already with things like Skype. We’ll start to see very portable roll up screens of the size you can
hang on a wall. There will be a lot more forms for capturing conversations- there’s tools coming along for
cover it live (blogging tool- makes live blogging easier) and scribed. Ways of making voice and gesture
pretty good virtual face to face and all of that will only increase our range of collaboration possibility and of
course we’ll learn a lot more and we’ll have a lot more practice with all these tools.

I still think a blog is one of the best social networking tools for people who share interests that you pay
attention to. I use twitter, I use Skype, Gmail, gtalk. Pretty standard stuff really. But I also expect that if
someone comes along that we will agree on tools or if they have a tool. They like it’s likely I’ll be able to
interact pretty easily.

Tool evaluations

3.4.8 How do you see the future of e-collaboration? Do you think the web is the best tool to facilitate
collaborative innovation for sustainability? Do we need something else? What real world mechanisms
do you foresee necessary, running in parallel / supporting e-collaboration?

Things will just be more ubiquitous more pervasive broadband and wifi will be taken for granted .
They will be parts of the infrastructure, as will better filtering tools and aggregation tools. The
semantic web will evolve ( and or hold different points of view simultaneously ??? ).

We’ll be able to verify and validate facts more easily. New service just been announced: wolfram
alpha…. So you’ll start having services that are aimed at verifying and validating facts. The things that
we really need to support e-collaboration more broadly in the longer term are more about power and
politics in society. Big story about social media and Obama’s campaign was raising very large amounts
of money from small individual donations
We’ll need other mechanisms for making government and corporations more transparent and more
accountable.
I’ve been re-reading “Power Shift: knowledge, wealth and violence at the edge of the 21st
century”, by Alvin & Heidi Toffler.

The ongoing blending of the virtual and the physical means for a lot of people you spend a lot more
time behind screens which can be socially isolating. At the same time there are a lot of paradoxes ..
for example I have more active social life and wider range of friends than would have 10 years ago if
not for the web. Most have been met through blogging and other forms of online connections. People
out in the real world everywhere are now looking at little screens - iphone, touch screens, wifi will
help usher in a new level of interconnectedness. Lots of people everywhere are all over mobility and
wireless stuff.
I think ultimately what this will bring us to is force each of us to make a lot more choices about how
we want to live how we wanna use the time when we’re awake. The use of the web and our
interconnectedness because of synchronizing communication is making our sense of time change on
an individual basis- so we relate to space and time differently or start to. As we become more aware
of that more of us will be moved to make clearer choices about when we’re connected when we’re not
connected what we do when we’re connected when we’re not connected.

For sustainability: it’s clear that it’s here. It’s clear it’s the way most things are getting done particular
around disseminating or using knowledge. A lot of what’s underneath sustainability is different mental
models different behaviors- all of which the web is fundamental to providing. It’s here, it’s not going
away. It’s hugely important and will change the way we’re doing things. If all of us are careful and
think about ways that almost anything we do can collaborate and contribute to sustainability-basic
notion is there’s a lot of awareness and education and experience yet to deliver that relates to
sustainability in order to change mental models on a very broad basis.
Jon Husband’s story:
Pretty dedicated scholar and practitioner about the sociology of large systems- large organizations
societies and tribes- going back 25 years that took place in terms of launching myself into adult
world- wound up as management consultant organizational effectiveness firm. Designing the plumbing
and wiring of organization. Started about 5 years before computers in the workplace. Then saw birth
of consumer web in mid 90’s. because always interested in knowledge work- paid attention to impacts
of information technology on work. Dot com boom, dot com bust- interconnectedness. So started
thinking about organization structures or hierarchies- reworking the pyramid chart. I think to some
degree I’ve been a freethinker- the web was distribution and decentralizing information and
knowledge.
If knowledge is power- hierarchies are built around knowledge and power- and the web impacts that.
We’re seeing it all around us. We’re seeing the last 5 years has been a struggle with all sorts of parts
of society to cope with increased transparency, increased inputs, ongoing feedback loops both
negative and positive.

(send him whatever we have)