groups

CIO Insight, "Collaboration tools—which allow employees to brainstorm, plan, analyze, share work and make decisions together—are among the most important technologies of 2008.

Business development idea - the growing market for business social networking software and community solutions as a new communications tool. That's right. Email is dying and knowledge workers really want to work together - collaborate - to get their work done.

What makes an online community work? We know software is only part of the solution. But, with any social software application, you need to understand: Collaboration - Participation - Information Flows, how people get work done, and relationships. The application must balance form and function - user experience - to be effective.

These two articles from Harvard reflect what we've been talking about, along with many others for the last two years. There are lessons to be learned from the open source software communities that will impact the way groups work together in organizations.