Co Working

See http://www.coworking.com/

The CoWorking Exchange is a virtual community for the Internet workspace. We offer tips for virtual teamwork, a newsletter, authored by BernieDeKoven, that tracks CoWorking trendsetters, and a forum where participants can brainstorm or share insights and ideas.

Here is my review, appearing as CoWorking Tool of the Day for 9/10/2000:

Today's "CoWorking Tool of the Day" features a technology, a concept and a practitioner. The technology is called "Wiki." According to the people of the Portland Pattern Repository who host the "WikiWikiWeb:"

"Wiki is a composition system; it's a discussion medium; it's a repository; it's a mail system; it's a tool for collaboration. Really, we don't know quite what it is, but it's a fun way of communicating asynchronously across the network."

You don't have to understand what Wiki "really" is in order to use this freely available and powerful CoWorking Tool. All pages are editable. All are searchable. All you have to do is play with it. And be patient. It's not all that intuitive, but it's fun and forgiving. Try playing with our CoWorking Wiki. It's fully editable, and you don't even have to be a member!

The featured concept is that of Knowledge Communities. Though there is little information available about the impact of Technography (real-time collaboration) on the support and development of Knowledge Communities (the collective understanding developed by people engaged in asynchronous collaboration), it is clear that any understanding of the nature and nurture of Knowledge Communities will prove of great value in our understanding of the contribution Technography.

Why? Because Technography, as we have stated elsewhere, is a pivotal tool for developing and maintaining effective CoWorking relationships. As these relationships mature, they build a repository of shared knowledge: knowledge of fellow co-workers, knowledge of effective CoWorking practices, knowledge of the nature and scope of the business relationships. And because with the concept of Knowledge Community, the emphasis is on knowledge, not just information, and on people, not just technology.

The practitioner is DenhamGrey. I first met him through his participation in Howard Rhiengold's Brainstorms community. Denham has compiled a formidable collection of resources on Knowledge Communities.

Warning! Denham is deeply engaged in this inquiry. His sites are extraordinarily rich with links and links to collections of links.