A three hour pit stop time on the French Riviera between San Francisco, Idaho (don't ask) and Amsterdam...
Many thanks goes out to Ismael who did an amazing job with Office 2.0 - and have to mention Julia (found no link) who was there wherever I looked at all times in full control of all aspects with an amazing air of detached leadership.
Good stuff guys!
Many cool products to be seen, all nicely summed up in the flash demo session.
Not wanting to do any ranking, but the products that I still remember were all some strain of collaboration tools.
I am a tad preoccupied with process, mostly because it enables records and allows methodology to better whatever you need to do.
Thus I inevitably ran the products I saw through a mind-based theoretical flip to proper process run solution instead - like in "how would I have designed that in thingamy".
In theory I succeeded each time.
I can hear the protests now. Collaboration is creative, collaboration gives freedom, collaboration is what we want - pooh on you to suggest structured process restricted collaboration!
Hang on a sec I say, process is nothing but sequence. One thing after the other. One mail follows the last one. You say something, I respond, then you quip back, etc. If not in sequence it becomes rude. Hey even soccer, football, squash, baseball are sequence-based.
The game follows the ball.
Just like sequence-process-workflows in thingamy, the ball is the object that you want to add value to. The game follows the ball.
Process is an OK animal, and as it delivers accountability, framework and riverbeds for flows - why not go there?
Light is waves *and* particles, at the same time. Work is process and collaboration. I can subscribe to your view wihtout having a conflict with my fascination for effective collaboration. It all depends how you look at it and how you measure your lap times.
Within each step of a process, work may get done in a collaborative fashion (process contains collaboration).
Processes may evolve through collaboration: four steps ABCD becomes a more effective three step AXD.
And umpteen different variations on that.
Posted by: Lars Plougmann | October 16, 2006 at 18:33
Lars, obviously you're right - good analogy with the "laptime"! Every event, task or whatever can be as wide or narrow you want - rather a practical issue in the end I would think :)
Collaboration in itself is sequential too, just like the commenting we're doing here, and in being sequential it becomes accountable and possible to better etc.
Posted by: sig | October 17, 2006 at 08:15