Getting the Word Out to Your Collaborators

• Author: Dennis Kennedy - Tom Mighell
• Pages: 229-234

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Getting the Word Out

to Your Collaborators

Here’s a question for you: what happens if you make a change

to a document in a collaboration tool and no one knows you

made the change? More simply put, what is the sound of one

collaborator collaborating?

A collaboration tool works only if your collaborators actu-

ally use it, either routinely or as it is needed. The simple failure

of people to use those tools is what dooms most collaborative

projects. For example, in our experience the messaging tools

of Internet social networking sites began to take the place of

scattered email discussions as people migrated to those ser-

vices. Slack or other services also help people move out of

email. However, when there is “leakage” from the tool back to

email, people eventually abandon the social networking tools

and revert to their earlier emailing habits. Understanding the

reasons for this phenomenon and designing and building strat-

egies that address these issues will help to ensure that your

collaborative technologies are properly utilized.

The main villain causing people to abandon collaboration

tools is something we discussed in Chapter 25: the multiplica-

tion of information silos. We keep our information in various

locations—email, document management tools, and financial

systems, for example—that we must visit separately to use.

A collaboration tool that either reduces (or at least does not

increase) the number of information silos, offers a bridge

between them, or provides an entry point to several different

silos will have a greater chance for success than a tool that

creates an additional silo you and your collaborators must

remember to visit.

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