Pathways to Collaboration

Collaborative computing is more than just another catchy computer term; collaborative computing is a way of using computer technology to do business more efficiently. In the traditional business environment, employees work alone, sometimes in a vacuum. When people need to work together, they have to exert special effort to meet with each other and more effort to complete a project. The farther apart those people are, the more effort overcoming the distance takes. Usually, the result suffers.Collaborative computing consists of several technologies and processes for short-circuiting the isolation of individual employees and constructing a new, cooperative business model. The basis of collaborative computing is that employees are resources, not islands, and to get the best result, you need to put the resources together in the most efficient way.

Picture the average business: Lots of frontline employees work away at their assigned tasks; then they present the results of their work to managers, who collate the work of multiple employees and present the results to their managers, and so on. If two groups--engineering and sales, for example--have to contribute work, the collation probably takes place a couple of levels up the chain, and the people who did the work never see how the company is going to use what they created.

Collation usually occurs in meetings, and meetings are an inefficient way to run a business. Meetings take people away from their regular work and require extra time--the time necessary to prepare for the meeting, to participate, and to deal with the results. Because large companies tend to be geographically dispersed, meetings usually require time and money for travel, too. This process is hierarchical: Employees report to managers, who report to their managers, and so on.

By contrast, a collaborative environment is project oriented. If a project requires both sales and engineering people, those people work together directly and produce a result that reflects both departments' efforts, undiluted by passing through multiple managers. Collaborative projects demand few meetings and--thanks to the wonders of wide area networking and the Internet--little travel.

Putting collaborative technologies to work in a company changes the structure of the company to accommodate the process. If the work requires people from various departments or divisions or even from several companies, companies often form workgroups that cut across layers. If a person has knowledge the workgroup needs, the person's level in the company (frontline, middle management, top management) is not important. Such workgroups tend to flatten corporate structures.

The costs of implementing collaborative technologies can be high, especially if you select high-end components such as videoconferencing and video-enabled email. But collaborative technologies also can offer tremendous cost offsets. Telephone and travel expenses decrease significantly, and individual worker productivity increases in a collaborative environment. Costs can vary from free (if you use software and systems you already have) to "Hoo boy!" for the highest quality, most expensive videoconferencing equipment. For example, PictureTel manufactures very high-end LAN-enabled equipment that can cost $3000 per seat--or more, if you want a dedicated videoconferencing facility.

Too much money? Not necessarily. You can create collaborative--even multimedia-enabled--offices less expensively. I used videoconferencing as an example to scare you, but here's an example to reassure you: If you're willing to accept excellent audio but less than broadcast-quality video, you can use Connectix's Color QuickCam and VideoPhone software to create a multimedia collaborative environment for less than $300 a seat. Yep, $300. Not a typo. What do you give up? Multipoint videoconferencing (more than two locations conferencing simultaneously) and excellent video quality. Video quality can be downright awful at times, especially when the frame includes a lot of movement.

Types of Collaborative Technology
OK, let's talk technologies. Four categories of collaborative technologies are email, groupware, whiteboards, and videoconferencing. Many applications, however, offer two or more of these technologies, and you can split each technology into several sublevels of capability. For example, email can be text only; text and audio; or text, audio, and video. You can use groupware applications for document management only, or you can add revision control.

You can categorize these technologies into two types of collaboration: your-time and realtime. In your-time collaboration, each person in the collaboration works during that person's normal working hours, regardless of the location of their coworkers. Your-time collaboration uses technologies such as email and groupware that accommodate workers' diverse schedules. If you're working on a project with other people who are a few time zones away or halfway across the globe, when you're working, they're sleeping and vice versa. Collaborative systems can take this difference into account by not requiring immediate response.

A realtime environment lets people communicate directly and immediately, usually by voice or video across the network, regardless of their locations. Whiteboarding and videoconferencing are examples of realtime collaboration.

Each technology requires a certain level of hardware. Email requires a client (such as the Windows NT Exchange Client or a third-party email client) at each workstation and as many servers (such as the Exchange Server) as you have groups or locations. If you're supporting a regional or global enterprise, you need some method--an intranet or the Internet--of getting mail from one site to another. You probably already have everything you need. Likewise, groupware doesn't require anything more than LAN/WAN connections and the appropriate software, such as Lotus Notes or Microsoft Team Manager.

The costs go up when you add multimedia to the mix. Adding sound capabilities to email means that each client needs a sound card, speakers or a headset, and a microphone, so figure around $200 per set. As I mentioned earlier, adding video can be as inexpensive as $300 or as much as $3000, depending on the minimum level of quality you can accept. So now that I've alerted you to the costs, let's take a look at what each of these technologies can do for you