There’s something that bugs me about the idea of collaboration software: It’s the implication that it’s a new idea, and problem ignored by computing and software, that requires new applications and approaches. This is a silly idea. The Internet was constructed to promote collaboration. Computer networks, client-server computing, database systems, and other areas have always been about promoting collaboration. It’s hard to think of an area of software that is aimed at individuals to the exclusion of the working group.

The idea that Collaboration is a market vertical is more than wrong, it’s counter-productive. It ignores the history of computing, particularly how work and the workplace, and social practice has made use of computing and communications technology. That’s the important part, because while technology changes rapidly, the habits and practices of humans change much more slowly. As workers in an increasingly distributed and electronically connected workplace, we need to observe how the workplace is changing in the face of technology as an evolution, not as some revolution brought about by the installation of a new software package.

For example, the workhorses of collaboration within the software industry are some of the oldest tools: e-mail and source code control systems. It would be silly to ignore these tools in any new project, be it developing processes within a project, or developing tools to support it. Microsoft’s tools illustrate this problem pretty well. While their IDE’s are very powerful and productive for individual developers, group use of these tools are hampered by an extremely weak source code control system: Source Safe, and lack of e-mail integration. (Disclaimer: My last experience with the Microsoft development platform was in 2005 – perhaps they’ve improved since).

When I write about Virtual Work Groups, I want to make it clear that I do not see this as a problem solvable with some nifty software packages. It’s fundamentally a human process problem, with a mature tool set readily available for application. Folks interested in improving the tools should look for better integration, hopefully via open standards. The last thing we need is more walled gardens inventing new, unproven and untested ways of working.