4 ms·
There are way too many academics, curators and theorists in the collaboration theories world. Way too many VCs and tech start ups have taken them too seriously.
by olivermarks 4y ago
There are way too many academics, curators and theorists in the collaboration theories world. Way too many VCs and tech start ups have taken them too seriously.
It's like the old joke 'an economist can tell you a 1000 ways to make love but has never touched another person'. The reality with collaboration strategies (which I was heavily involved with last decade) is that it all about context, scale, the people involved, the goals, overcoming silos and rivalries etc. The technology enablers are not wildly important except to choose tools that don't impede.
Playing wackamole with 57 varieties of Slack channel to make sure you are not missing anything vitally important is not efficient collaboration and a huge time suck.
As long as the academic chattering classes keep convincing VCs to pour money into yet more collab start ups there will continue to be new generations of not very useful tools and the low bar of msft teams and email/doc culture will continue to survive. Glacial pace, groundhog day film like deja vu experiences in this world as I'm sure many have experienced on HN...
- CrypticShift 4y agoOk I agree that software is not the primary enabler. But let's just pause on these tools. For you : - On the one hand, mainstream collaborative tools are "low-bar", and Big Tech is responsible for its "Glacial pace". - On the other hand, "new generations" are growing too wildly, and "are not very useful", and "academic chattering" is responsible for it. The second point is supposed the be the "market" solution to the first. You seem to think this is not the case, because of misguided academics, curators and theorists. Would you care to cite some (of the worst) examples ?
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago> an economist can tell you a 1000 ways to make love but has never touched another person I was always partial to Brendan Behan's famous quote: > “Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves.”
- andirk 4y agoIs that considered one of the best quotes ever? Because I am using it but will likely botch it each time yet still get the point across.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y agoI can’t speak to it being “the best ever,” but it’s the one I heard. It would not surprise me, if others used it, and maybe, added “spice.”