I was sitting at my desk when an IM box appears. It's Nancy White saying "What is Collaboration?"
[4/24/2008 2:55:14 PM] Nancy White says: What is your distinction between cooperation and collaboration>=?
Jim Benson says: Cooperation costs $125 an hour. Collaboration costs $350 an hour.
Nancy White says: Funny!
Nancy White says: Seriously, what distinction would you make
Nancy White says: And can I quote you on your earlier def! LOL
Nancy White says: Actually, Can Shawn Callahan quote you on his blog
Jim Benson says: Cooperation is less specific. Cooperation can be the actions, intentional or otherwise, between two or more entities towards the realization of a common state.
Nancy White says: That jives with my understanding too
Nancy White says: Can we quote that too! ;)
Jim Benson says: Collaboration is a willful act. Collaboration is a movement toward a predetermined state by one or more entities usually by the execution of specific tasks.
And we went on to bring Shaun into the chat and he added some of the results to his post "The difference between cooperation and coordination".
What's interesting was we started out cooperating ... Nancy was asking me questions and as a friend of hers I was answering (after requisite silliness). We had (or at least I had) no end goal in mind other than cooperating with a random question asked by a woman who ... often asks questions.
Then we started talking, and Shaun shows up from Australia. And suddenly we are a little ad-hoc think tank arguing the esoterics of two words that many people find synonymous.
Then, it became collaboration. We were engaged in a willful act in a group aimed at a specific goal. We were collaborating at achieving a common understanding of what the differences between cooperating and collaborating were.
Or that's my definition set anyway. Look at Shaun's post to see other ideas.
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