July 22, 2009 By Andy Blumenthal
Information technology has traditionally been about "communication" of information -- capturing it, processing it, moving it, storing it, finding it and using it. But now, with Web 2.0, we have evolved from communication to "collaboration." Well, what's the difference?
When we communicate, aren't we collaborating (and vice versa)?
When I posed this question recently to some peers at a council meeting, I received a couple of different responses. One person said when we communicate it's one way, but when we collaborate it's a two-way conversation. Well, not really in my mind, because communication can be one-way or two-way. So this doesn't seem to be the differentiator.
Then, I was given the anecdote that in the "olden days" when we just communicated, we would put information out there and ask people to provide input, but now that we have collaboration tools like wikis, other people can actually work on the document themselves.
My response was -- OK, but regardless of whether you enter your own input or send me your input and I enter it -- it's still collaboration. It's nice to have the tools so that others can actually work on the document themselves, but it's not like we weren't reaching out to and collaborating with others previously.
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Digital Communities (DC) is e.Republic‘s local government program. The particular strength of DC is its focus on encouraging collaboration and creating productive relationships between and among cities, counties, regions and select private sector companies uniquely positioned to help improve the delivery of public services.
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