What does 'collaboration' really mean?

Before I left my most recent post, I was working on a cheat sheet to help the internal employees determine which tool to use to collaborate. I was reminded of this effort when I heard this NPR discussion: Online is a puzzle of picking platforms.

Whenever there is a new technology, new software, there will be several different versions, with devotees of one or the other. What is interesting in the current environment, is that typically people are using more than one technology - Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, etc. Companies may use Wiki and SharePoint and different types of instant messaging. Project Management tools build messaging into their tools for ease of use.

At some point, to get to Quality Software, we need to consider whether all these different methods are helping us collaborate, or merely increasing the level of learning required before we can get to collaboration.

And before we can consider that, we need to answer the question: what does collaboration really mean? Is it sharing knowledge? Building something together? Open communication? Because it is becoming a buzzword, it is losing clarity of meaning.

Let me propose what it means, and I'd be interested in your thoughts on it: Collaboration is building something together, whether that be a shared knowledgebase or a piece of software or a team. It requires that each member collaborating, bring something for mutual benefit.