A collaborative strategy

The idea of setting off alone, to explore the environment of the Internet looking for a suitable e-business opportunity might seem hopelessly naive, especially with a limited amount of knowledge and technical skills. However, setting off in the company of fifty others, whose combined experience cover a wide variety of knowledge and skills is a more credible situation: especially if everyone is agreed upon creating an atmosphere of mutual collaboration.

Here it is necessary to make a distinction between cooperation and collaboration. If this group were cooperating, a common goal would need to be established. Everyone in the group would contribute their specialty knowledge to help achieve this agreed goal. The problem is that it would almost certainly be impossible to get an agreement on a common goal. Certainly I couldn't expect fifty people to selflessly concentrate upon a goal of my choosing.

Collaboration, on the other hand, doesn't require a common goal; everyone can have their own goal. Collaboration allows people to interact with each other, yet, still have independent viewpoints. This can be appreciated by considering the way collaboration takes place in e-mail discussion forums. In these forums, there is usually a common theme, perhaps a niche specialty area of technology. Everyone subscribing to the discussion is free to ask questions, put forward propositions or just listen in.

When a subscriber asks a question, there is usually someone in the forum who will give an answer or provide a pointer to where a solution might be found. This has the effect of providing everyone who belongs to the forum a source of knowledge and information. It is almost the equivalent of every subscriber to the discussion forum having the combined knowledge of all subscribers. This is a very powerful asset.

In a highly technical, constantly changing environment such as the Internet, these discussion forums are absolutely essential because it is impossible for anyone to know all there is to know. The forums allow members to obtain knowledge on a "need to know" basis: information on tap, eliminating the need to have to know absolutely everything in order to act competently.

Upon first encountering these collaborative e-mail discussion forums, it seems amazing that so many people act altruistically to take so much trouble to help each other. It seems to good to be true. However, when the motives of the helpful posters are examined, they are nearly always found to be benefiting from the helpful contributions they make. Three of these are of interest here:

1) Collaborative learning

They might be interested in the nature of the problem and this gives them an incentive to work out a solution. It gives them an opportunity to test their knowledge or skills. Usually, several people come up with answers or solutions, illustrating different ways of approaching the same problem. They then have a chance to compare their answer with others. Or, if there is a degree of uncertainty about an answer, the range of uncertainty might become apparent.

Wrong of inferior answers or solutions are almost always corrected. In this way, anyone providing answers or solutions can very quickly get feedback on their thinking or approach, allowing them to gain experience or knowledge that might otherwise be difficult to obtain.

2) Acquiring a reputation

Just as in the world of bricks and mortar, people have more credibility if they can give evidence of their knowledge or expertise. This also applies to personality and character. It is this kind of information about posters that comes across in e-mail discussion forums when posters take an active part. Those who are helpful and freely give others the benefit of their knowledge and experience become group personalities, who are more likely to be able to get the cooperation or collaboration from others on the list. This quite often leads to beneficial business propositions and associations.

3) Making new friends and contacts

Discussions in e-mail discussion forums often lead to further private discussions off list. In this way, posters who are active in discussion forums can build up a list of personal contacts whom they can go to directly for information or advice. Quite often, these relationships develop into collaborative business associations.

These three reasons alone illustrate advantages for people who contribute to e-mail discussion forums. The people who merely listen in, without contributing, miss out on these three highly valuable benefits.