Wiki’s and Open Source: Collaborative or Cooperative?

[Howard Rheingold]

Wiki’s and Open Source: Collaborative or Cooperative?

http://eaves.ca/2007/02/05/wikis-and-open-source-collaborative-or-cooperative/

Wiki’s and Open Source: Collaborative or Cooperative?

This is a follow up to my previous post Community Management as Open Source’s Core Competency which has become the most viewed post on this site. I’ve been meaning to follow it up for some time, sorry for the delay.

Online communities, and in particular their collaborative nature, have been generating a lot of buzz lately. But are online communities collaborative? The more I reflect on it, the more I believe the answer is no. While I know there is a tremendous amount of online cooperation, this is not the same as collaboration. The cooperative capacity of online communities has been a boon, but we should also recognize and concern ourselves, with their limits. I suspect the world’s most interesting and challenging problems cannot be solved alone, or even in cooperation with others. Elegant and effective solutions (those most useful to users or consumers) likely benefit from, and probably require, an interplay of ideas and perspectives. Consequently, for those involved in online collaborative projects – such as Wiki’s or open source – understanding the distinction between cooperation and collaboration is critical. If online communities cannot foster collaboration then they will fall short of the hype and ambitions they have set for themselves. Conversely, communities that figure out how to enable their members to collaborate (as opposed to merely cooperate) may end up having a decisive advantage.

Why distinguish between collaboration and cooperation? Because the subtle difference between these words describes a lot about where we are versus where we need to be vis-à-vis online communities. Admittedly, Websters’ defines the two words very similarly. However, I would argue that collaboration, unlike cooperation, requires the parties involved in a project jointly solve problems. Truly collaborative processes enable differing and possibly conflicting views to merge to create something new and previously unimagined (think of Hegel’s thesis and anti-thesis coming together in a synthesis). Many online projects – offered up as collaborative – do not meet this standard. For example, some on-line projects, particularly open-source software projects, break problems down into smaller pieces which are tackled by individuals. Sub-dividing a problem and allowing a network of volunteers to opt-in to providing solutions it is a highly efficient. However, those involved in the project many never need to talk, exchange ideas or even interact. Indeed tricky problems may rely on a single clever hacker, operating alone, to solve a problem. While this can be part of a cooperative effort – people with a common goal contributing labour to achieve it – I’m not sure it is collaborative. Equally, many wiki’s simply replace old information with new information, or rely on an arbiter to settle differences. This is at best cooperative, at worst competitive, but again probably not collaborative. (Side note: Please understand, I do not mean to belittle the incredible success of online communities. Indeed the achievements of open source projects and wiki’s are remarkable. However, my concern is that cooperative approaches may only be able to solve a specific, and limited, problem type. Cultivating collaborative communities may be necessary to solve larger, more complex and interesting problems.)

My guess is that unlike cooperation, online collaboration is rare. Why? Probably because online collaboration it is hard – a fact that should hardly be surprising since face to face collaboration is itself pretty hard. (I make a living off helping people do it better…) People approach problems with, among other things, different sets of assumptions, different stated and unstated goals, and different pieces of data. Effective collaboration requires people to share these differences and resolve them. Anyone who has ever been to a business meeting (even among colleagues from the same company) knows that this can sometimes be neither self-evident nor easy. Numerous issues can sabotage collaborative efforts – including those that have nothing to do with the substance of the problem. For example, our ideas often end up being linked to our identity. Even just modifying our idea, or worse, adopting someone else wholesale, can feel like admitting someone else is smarter or better – something that may be difficult to do, especially in a voluntary community where your value and credibility is linked to your capacity to solve problems or provide ideas.

From what I can tell online projects only exasperate the challenges of face to face collaboration. Without personal relationships, trust, body language or even intonation, it is easy for communication to break down. Consequently, it is difficult for people to resolve differences, exchange ideas, or brainstorm freely: in short, it is difficult to collaborate. Successful online projects seem to manage this by being either a) small – relying on a tight-knit community whose strong relationships enable them to collaborate; or b) large – achieving success by doing the opposite of collaboration: separating problems into discrete pieces that individuals can handle alone. Interaction is then limited to peer review processes where criticism – not constructive problem-solving – is the dominant form of dialogue. Interactions are thus limited, and usually arbitrated by some central authority. This has the benefit of minimizing conflict but it also reduces the opportunities for collaboration. As an aside, there is no paradox here: collaboration is inherently conflictual. Most ideas spring from parties sharing differing, conflicting perspectives and jointly working to develop a solution that meets both their interests. Eliminate the conflict and you eliminate the opportunity for new ideas. Consequently, the goal of online communities should be to determine how to manage, not eliminate, conflict.

So far, to be collaborative – to enable people to work together and jointly solve problems – online communities appear to have two options: (please send others!)

1) Build relationships between their users – stronger relationships can (although not always) enable people to overcome breakdowns in communication. However, building relationships generally takes time and is to scale. To date, the voting system on the Omidyar network – which rewards those perceived as having ‘good’ behaviours and ideas – is the most effective I have seen to date. Although the behaviours are not defined, one can presume that those with higher ratings are likely to be more trustworthy and easier to collaborate with than those with lower ratings. However, this system does not help users develop collaborative behaviours or skills, it simply rewards those who are already perceived as being more collaborative then the mean. Consequently, users with poor collaborative skills, but possessing expertise or substantive knowledge essential to the success of a project, may struggle to contribute. Even more troubling, the vast majority of your users could be inept at collaborating, and this system will do nothing to raise the bar or improve the community. It will only highlight and identify who is least inept.

2) Develop online communities with built in methodologies and processes that encourage or even compel users to jointly solve problems. Here one can imagine an online community that forces users to work through Chris Argyris’ ladder of inference. While likely more difficult to design, such a system could compel users to be collaborative (possibly even regardless of their intentions).

A lot of the theory around collaborative decision-making is explored in greater detail in negotiation theory. This post is part of my continuing effort to flesh out how (and even if) negotiation theory can be applied to online collaborative networks… I promise more thoughts in the future – in the meantime please send or post yours!

One closing note – if there is a compelling link between negotiation theory and collaborative online networks then it would suggest a new interesting area for inter-disciplinary studies. For example, Stanford has the Centre for Internet and Society and the Gould Negotiation and Mediation Program. It would be interesting to know if these two centres believe they share this area of mutual interest. Maybe I’ll work up the courage to email Lawrence Lessig and ask…

Howard Rheingold

how...@rheingold.com

www.rheingold.com  www.smartmobs.com

what it is ---> is --->up to us

[J Margolin]

Very very interesting.

I have two relevant background thoughts:

• I believe that humans have something I'll call "soul," that we can identify in one another and even in animals, but which isn't present in a machine (yet... sure, fine, that's another topic).
• I was watching something on the future of robotics, including a claim that robots could be companions in old age, which felt very sad to me, as though it would be like being satisfied by the companionship of a floor fan (which I'm quite fond of the last few days, but it's just not the same as human-human interaction, even if it were conversant and able to accurately dispense medications).

I believe that the difference between the way cooperation and collaboration *feels* is that collaboration requires a much higher degree of "personal openness" or vulnerability.  To some degree that is given by non-verbal cues (and certainly typing is less useful than video, but even video doesn't allow you to see the whole physical person or a complete bandwidth of sound, let alone get at really subliminal cues through smell...)

Because I believe the ability to connect at an intuitive interpersonal level is important to collaboration, I think that online collaboration is more likely to emerge via online group artistic ensemble performance than things that require thinking and negotiation.  (Games feel collaborative, for example.)

Opinionally,
-Jessica

--
Jessica Margolin
Margolin Consulting
www.margolin-consulting.com
510 709 8267

[Howard Rheingold]

I like "joint problem solving" as a compact answer to the question of the diff between cooperation and collaborate. You need to cooperate to collaborate; you don't have to collaborate to cooperate.

Howard Rheingold

how...@rheingold.com

www.rheingold.com  www.smartmobs.com

what it is ---> is --->up to us

[J Margolin]

>"joint problem solving"
ok. to use your term: for me personally, jps implies trust, which implies being more open than i am baseline steadystate (and i've been told repeatedly that i'm relatively unguarded).

so looking at your question: what would enable collaboration?  trust. how get more trust?  more transparency. but what isn't transparent? well, everything that can't be conveyed verbally or in a relatively small video window.

omidyar.net has big meetups, which i perceive go a LOT farther to cement trusting relationships than the point system (which has flaws).

(is jane or other game person around?) what about how negotiations are handled during game environments?  my child plays xbox live and a lot of the game goes on via headset; that's where the collaboration happens.

[Stephan Dohrn]

As you said colleboaration requires trust, which has to be built (probably by direct contact that is at least verbal). Even face-to-face a group of more than say 10 is really hard to get to collaborate beyond a meeting or workshop. If it works, my experience is that they know each other for years and have built up that trust and comfort needed to jointly solve a problem (and be vulnerable, as you say Jessica). However, in that case the group is likely not to have access to much new information (see posts on the book HotSpots and the paper by Ron Burns that Howard on social networks posted yesterday).

 

So the dilemma is that to get in new ideas, and a new perspective you have to bring in someone who has a different background, exposure, which means that that trust is not there.

 

Both HotSpots and Social Network as Innovation emphasize the role of boundary spanners (HotSpot) or connetcors (Social networks) to inject new ideas and perspectives into fairly homogenous groups that are working very efficiently. Could one think of designing an online community that allows these connectors (how would we identify them) to play a linking and aggregating role between a lot of relatively small collaborative teams?

re gaming: is that because they are kids and trust much more easily, or because they grow up experiecning communication in a very different way and so do not have some of the issues we have (having to look smart, intelligent and not showing weaknesses)?

 

St

510 709 8267

--
Jessica Margolin
Margolin Consulting
www.margolin-consulting.com

510 709 8267

--
cell: 202 294 4055
Skype & gtalk: stephandohrn

[Howard Rheingold]

To the degree that collaboration requires cooperation, this might be useful:

http://bokardo.com/archives/3-necessary-conditions-for-cooperation/

In The Evolution of Cooperation, written in 1984!, Robert Axelrod suggests there are three necessary conditions for people to cooperate with each other.

   1. A likelihood of meeting in the future

      If people don’t think they’ll meet again in the future, there are no repercussions for not cooperating. Threats of not cooperating are of no use. People will act selfish if there is no future to the relationship. Therefore, the knowledge of future meetings changes our behavior because we feel some level of impending accountability for our actions.

   2. An ability to identify each other

      Identity is really important for cooperation because it allows us to know who we’re dealing with. If people can’t identify who they’re dealing with, then they can’t hold that person accountable. This doesn’t mean that we have to know everything about the person, like their address and where they live, it means that they are identified as a person to the system they’re in and the people they’re dealing with.

   3. A record of past behavior

      We have learned to assume that the best way to judge future behavior is by looking at past behavior. Thus having a positive record of behavior leads to cooperation. eBay’s seller ratings are a great example of this in action. Sellers accumulate status over time as they do business on the site. Sellers who have a rich transaction history with a high percentage of positive transactions are much more likely to be successful than those with no history.

Howard Rheingold

how...@rheingold.com

www.rheingold.com  www.smartmobs.com

what it is ---> is --->up to us

[J Margolin]

Stephan,

Interesting point about infusing new ideas!  I like that topology of boundary spanners.

Re: games - these are teen boys so if anything they're more guarded than adults.  I recently pointed out to  my son that it's inappropriate to say "Owned!" when people suffer misfortune -- this is a typical male communication at his school.  I pointed out he could say, "Gee it's too bad that happened," and his response to that is that this is what girls say.  (These children do not in any other way appear to be clinically disturbed.)

So I think the trust happens for the kids because the social-behavioral rules are so clear and the objective is very well defined and known (and peoples' success at achieving the objective is known).  Behaviorally there is constant feedback via headset systems regarding actions in the games.  I think for adults there's a lot more ambiguity, and also adults have many "models" of peoples' behavior they can choose from.

I know personally it sometimes takes a while for me to sort out whether someone I'm talking to is highly defended or has Aspergers or just poor social skills... or conversely someone who is highly sophisticated politically (but benign) vs. a player, vs. a user.  I have known all these people and seen people move from category to category, and know people who act well, so it's a bit more subtle.

-Jessica

510 709 8267

[samue...@gmail.com]

(wow, Bokardo's a great resource. Thanks. I actually was not
previously aware of it).

Also, there seems to be a size limit to the amount of people who can
work in direct cooperation. The Dunbar number, which you've talked
about before:

http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2004/03/the_dunbar_numb.html

http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2004/03/what_is_the_opt.html

"...according to Chris Allen's online group analysis, can be seen at
two levels: both small and medium sized. Small, viable (in that they
can be effective at tasks) groups (or cells) are optimized at 7-8
members. A lower boundary can be seen at 5 (with groups less than 5
not having sufficient resources to be effective) and an upper boundary
at 9. Medium sized groups are optimal at 45-50 members, with a lower
limit of 25 and an upper limit of 80. Between these levels is a chasm
that must be surmounted with significant peril to the group. This is
due to the need for groups above 9-10 members to have some level of
specialization by function. This specialization requires too much
management oversight to be effective given the limited number of
participants in each function. At 25 members, the group gains positive
returns on specialization given the management effort applied (a break-
even point)."

These limits have shown themselves in the past, in some online group
projects I've been a part of. I believe what Robb is talking about
above is what David Eaves is calling "cooperative", as opposed to
"collaborative".

I think that in reference to the online group sizes that Chris Allen
is alking about, that actual Eaves-defined "collaboration" happens in
the "small" group size (2-8 people).

> how...@rheingold.comwww.rheingold.com www.smartmobs.com

> >> - such as Wiki's or open source - understanding the distinction

> >> between cooperation and collaboration is critical. If online
> >> communities cannot foster collaboration then they will fall short
> >> of the hype and ambitions they have set for themselves.
> >> Conversely, communities that figure out how to enable their
> >> members to collaborate (as opposed to merely cooperate) may end up
> >> having a decisive advantage.
>
> >> Why distinguish between collaboration and cooperation? Because the
> >> subtle difference between these words describes a lot about where
> >> we are versus where we need to be vis-à-vis online communities.
> >> Admittedly, Websters' defines the two words very similarly.
> >> However, I would argue that collaboration, unlike cooperation,
> >> requires the parties involved in a project jointly solve problems.
> >> Truly collaborative processes enable differing and possibly
> >> conflicting views to merge to create something new and previously
> >> unimagined (think of Hegel's thesis and anti-thesis coming

> >> together in a synthesis). Many online projects - offered up as
> >> collaborative - do not meet this standard. For example, some on-

> >> line projects, particularly open-source software projects, break
> >> problems down into smaller pieces which are tackled by
> >> individuals. Sub-dividing a problem and allowing a network of
> >> volunteers to opt-in to providing solutions it is a highly
> >> efficient. However, those involved in the project many never need
> >> to talk, exchange ideas or even interact. Indeed tricky problems
> >> may rely on a single clever hacker, operating alone, to solve a

> >> problem. While this can be part of a cooperative effort - people
> >> with a common goal contributing labour to achieve it - I'm not

> >> sure it is collaborative. Equally, many wiki's simply replace old
> >> information with new information, or rely on an arbiter to settle
> >> differences. This is at best cooperative, at worst competitive,
> >> but again probably not collaborative. (Side note: Please
> >> understand, I do not mean to belittle the incredible success of
> >> online communities. Indeed the achievements of open source
> >> projects and wiki's are remarkable. However, my concern is that
>

> ...
>
> read more »