One observation I would make is that conversations around technology often go like this:
- Someone will start enthusiastically talking about a the latest snazzy tool to build a community (blogs, wikis, radio-controlled lab rats).
- Someone else will say we need to think about the users.
- Someone else will opine that it's not about the tools, it's about the business outcome and we need to focus on that.
- Yet another person will say that this new radio-controlled lab rat tool is just a fancy version of a bulletin board and they can't see what the fuss is all about.
Now the annoying thing is that everyone in the above debate is partly right. There is a circle of questions (broadly who, why, what, how, when & where) that you go round whenever talking about group collaboration. It doesn't really matter where you start on the question merry-go-round, so long as you stop at all the stations along the way.
I actually think that these 6 questions need to be asked of any knowledge sharing project. With the proviso that the bigger the changes revealed by the 6 answers for the practice of your participants as a result of your project, the harder it is going to be to implement.
N.B. As much as I like new collaboration tools, I would draw your attention to Ward Cunningham's comment on slide 12 - you want the simplest thing that could possibly work. And what is "simple" for a bunch of comp sci PhDs is different to what is "simple" for a bunch of care assistants. However discussions around tools do serve a useful purpose in surfacing assumptions about participants, goals, activities, etc. The "how" station is not a bad place to start but a rubbish place to stay.
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1 comment:
"It carries on until everyone gets bored or someone actually does something." Great stuff. The conversations about technology need to be held in parallel to actually doing something. Unfortunately, this conversation arc usually gets in the way of forward momentum,
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