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Collegeville / VirtualTeams

This repo is for collecting and synthesizing content and artifacts that help us understand and improve virtual teams.
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Paradoxes and Prerogatives in Global Virtual Collaboration (2001) #3

Open amoralesg001 opened 4 years ago

amoralesg001 commented 4 years ago

Although this chapter https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/501317.501354 is pretty old, I got a lot from it and still think a lot of it applies today. One of the things that stuck to me is that "technology is a device, not a driver, of virtual collaboration". We tend to think that the most complex forms of technology will create more communication. Rather, its simple technologies that enable team members to do complex activities.

This article also highlights the potential and impact these tools have on knowledge sharing. Although knowledge sharing might be more effortful in virtual collaboration, virtual collaboration enables us to interact with people who are all diverse in culture, knowledge processes, and skills. If we are able to take advantage of diversity in virtual collaboration, we are able to gain new ideas and form new relationships with people around the world. This is very true in regards to our upcoming virtual conference as well. If the majority of us didn't have access to technologies such as zoom, or slack, we would not have been able to create an interactive virtual conference.

While knowledge sharing is a benefit of virtual collaboration, I don't think it is as easy to do when it comes to real life situations. In order to be comfortable in knowledge sharing, there is a need to have trust with your team members. As humans, our willingness to trust is based on the perception of how much we risk in order to interact with another person. Additionally, we tend not to trust people as much when they differ from us. This could spark challenges with diverse group members. So, there is a need to build relationships with your remote partners in order to take risks and be vulnerable with your virtual collaborators. Taking risks in my statement here would be, for example, asking questions, giving your opinion, admitting your mistakes, and sharing new knowledge.

maherou commented 4 years ago

Very nice summary!

elaineraybourn commented 4 years ago

@amoralesg001 said "So, there is a need to build relationships with your remote partners in order to take risks and be vulnerable with your virtual collaborators. Taking risks in my statement here would be, for example, asking questions, giving your opinion, admitting your mistakes, and sharing new knowledge."

me: 👽 👍 nice comment and perspective.