State-of-the-art collaborative tools are about as useful as a box of hammers (see photo) if no one is clear on the aim of the project. It is misguided to think that your team has a good collaborative environment just because everyone shares the same database, or that a specific social media tool is all you need to get…
Is your organization losing its mind?
Your team is compiling hundreds of pages to support your organization’s product. It takes months, sometimes years. So you can expect the faces at the table to change over time. Writing in organizations takes planning. If the team members take all the expertise with them, the collaborative writing project could be affected. And the organization might feel…
Law 4. Assess the requirements for the project (even if there’s no time)
You have already established your writing mandate with Law 3. So does the team start scribbling yet? Not quite. There’s an Arabic saying about good, expressive prose: (If it takes) No skill to understand it, (then it takes) mastery to write it.” — cited by Taleb in his book on anti fragility (I’ve added parenthetical notes) In writing,…
Collaborative Writing is Antifragile
Collaborative writing is a way to make a document better than if it were written by one person. Things can get better through uncertainty and seeming disorder. In his book, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, Nassim Nicholas Taleb looks at human activity from this unique perspective: Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to…