Collaboration In The Digital Age

About a week ago, I wrote about competition in the digital age. But I felt this was only one side of the coin as competition isn't the only thing that there is to get to a shared goal/objective in the digital age.

I think competition and collaboration form a dialectic, which can be defined as two principles that are both opposed and complementary in different ways. Think yin-yang of the Chinese model.

Usually, the goal with competition is to achieve personal success and gain recognition through securing a competitive advantage over others.

Whereas with collaboration, the goal is usually to combine strengths, perspectives, and expertise to achieve something that benefits all involved parties.

Taking the example of sports(again), both can happen at the same time on different levels. Collaboration amongst team members to win games and competition amongst different teams to win the title or rank on the top of the table.

In philosophy, one could say that collaboration is an evolution of competition.

At the beginning, we compete, compete and compete to reach a certain level but then we realise that if we want to break into the next or higher level and achieve bigger things, we will have to learn how to collaborate with other people to get the job done.

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A Bigger Picture Leads To A Bigger Pie But...

The digital age is mostly about technology and how it is used to digitize processes and outcomes.

On the one hand, a good number of physical processes and outcomes have been digitized(e.g physical media to digital media). And on the other hand, entirely new processes and outcomes that are independent of the physical realm have also been created(e.g real time streaming).

Arguably, we're still a bit far away from total digitization. I think that will happen when Virtual Reality becomes ubiquitous like smartphones are now and we move pass VR headsets. In that case, one could walk on a beach and not know exactly whether it is a physical or virtual beach.

Social media is a key part of the digital age, it allows us to communicate or network with people across the globe. This removes barriers and limitations such as
geographical distances and to a certain extend, language and cultural differences.

With social media, not only do we learn new things, discover new perspectives, and access information that we might not otherwise have. But we can also share our ideas, opinions and experiences with others who have similar interests or goals.

In a way, this is a giant collaboration platform where one could do more for less, leveraging the network effect that's inherent on the platform to achieve outcomes that one wouldn't normally achieve.

An example is crowdsourcing/crowdfunding to kickstart a project that one is passionate about. This is how Duolingo started in its early days, the founders used crowdsourcing to build their courses via inviting native speakers and language experts to edit and contribute content on their platform.

The ICO craze around 2017 was a form of crowdfunding that allowed investors to buy tokens in exchange for other cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin.

Initial Coin Offerings were seen as a way to raise funds without the need for intermediaries or oversight from regulators.

Although there were successful ones like EOS and Tezos, many turned out to be scams, frauds and failures. Some projects couldn't deliver on their promise(s) while others outright ran away with the money.

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...Building Trust Remotely Is Hard.

Digital interactions are limited in capabilities, which can make it hard to gauge the intentions of the other parties we want to collaborate with.

Also, since there are many options, we have to be clear on who or what to collaborate on. Otherwise, we may be like a ship on the ocean going with the flow of the wind without any clear direction.

With competition, there's a good element of control in regards to winning or losing. Although, one may play a part in it, winning or losing isn't entirely on one's control with collaboration.


Thanks for reading!! Share your thoughts below on the comments.