When we want to get things done then we need some form of organisation that will undertake the work, check that it’s been delivered and measure the output to test whether it’s solving the problem that we set out to resolve.
In the past those organisations have tended to be companies who use a variety of tools to manage the work and ensure that it is completed on time, to budget, and is carefully planned. They put teams of people together who co-operate with each other (generally) until the work is done. Then they move on to the ‘next thing’. Companies sought and employed experts (who know how to do it) and planners and strategists (to work out what to do) and the management of the organisation directed the work.
Is that the best model for collaboration?
If we are seeking a wide scale distributed collaborative model, can it be directed or must we look at other ways to influence and create?
This is something that the Societal Web can support in many ways and many models. Wikipedia is one such model where most people are consumers of the content (Readers to you and I) and a smaller proportion contribute (Write, correct, review, amend, suggest, defend) and a few are significant contributors.
In a formal organisation it’s really only the significant contributors and consumers who exist, in the guise of staff and customers, but those, who number far more than the staff, who would willingly contribute, don’t have the means, are excluded. That’s a real lost contribution, a real missing value, and it’s something which the Societal Web, increasingly is allowing us to capture, harness and build on, for the benefit of all.
Whether organisations, ultimately, cease to exist is unlikely, but alternatives are testing the boundaries, Collaboration (as opposed to co-operation) changes the game, the web is just a facilitator, societal rules and social mores define what’s an acceptable way of working, and if only one thing is clear so far, it’s that what we knew as a successful institutional business in the year 2000 may not be recognisable in 2010.
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