Let's be honest with ourselves.
These collaborative systems are amazing. They are leading the frontier of possibility 100 times further than we thought possible when the fax machine was invented. And they are definitely more efficient than emails, phone calls, etc.
When skimming over Teamwork, Supercharged after having read it, I noticed the word "wikis" in there. I came to the grand conclusion that Google Docs, for example, is very, very similar to Wikipedia. And well, we've all heard that "if you read it on Wikipedia, it's probably wrong" from one professor or another. So, if anyone working on a project with you can just add anything, where is the guarantee that it is not bogus?
For instance, we can look at ninwiki. (If you've read certain posts of my blog before, you'd have some inkling that i'm a huge fan of Nine Inch Nails.) Ninwiki is the main medium for NIN fans to learn about all of the Year Zero and its subsequent controversy buzz. It's pretty crazy what is going on with that. However, who is REALLY putting this all together? Is it the common everyday person, just interested in the mystery? Or is it actually one of Mr. Reznor's personal techies putting it together? If the latter is true, that reallllllly ruins it for me and for everyone (not that I approve of the message that NIN is putting out there anyways). But this whole campaign is creating a huge hype...and if it is a lie, people like this would be incredibly disappointed. Also, who says that it isn't a bunch of kids making all this up, and when Mr. Reznor caught wind of it just went along with it. There are no guarantees that this site contains real information, or if we are all being taken for a ride. There is no way to really know who the creators really are...
But applying this to the workplace, if anyone can have access to a document or project, what if they screw the whole thing up...or worse...DELETE IT!?! I can only imagine how I would have felt if Talila had accidentally deleted our social networking assignment. Or really, just my sections. Isn't this whole concept kind of dangerous?
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2 comments:
a slight deviation from the point you're trying to make, but i was really fascinated with the "Year Zero" sites done for NIN. it's really a great example of viral marketing since it generated such a big buzz as it "leaked" onto the internet.. i've seen alot of viral marketing before, but nothing quite like the way they've done it.. i think after the success of their campaign (but will it translate into record sales??) we'll see alot more marketing campaigns that are similar.
One of the members of my group deleted our project without my permission (after it was turned in). It put me off. Point taken! Stephanie
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