Often, well intentioned people embark on a process to advance the utility and usefullness of
collaboration and communties. This process is know as 'Feature/Function Analysis.' It often takes
the form of a survey or spreadsheet. This process is deeply flawed.
I strongly advise against a feature/function survey. They are a waste of time and produce little in return.
Reductionism is a dangerous and counterproductive model for this process.
Collaborations and communities are a complex human behavior, NOT a tool.
It is a far greater contribution to conduct well-designed ethnographic interviews to arrive at a
model of collaboration and community in a specific domain.
Stories, heuristics, vignettes and anecdotes will be far more effective in determining what qualities and environments help move collaboration and CPs forward.
Technology determinism manifest in the ubiquitous feature/function efforts for collaboration and CoPs always sets-back and hinders their development.
Functionalism is fine for complicated engineering problems, but not for complex human behaviour. Focus on the primary or elementary aspects of tools will -not- advance learning. Only higher-order conversation will deliver method and technique required to move forward.
There is a chronic oversupply of collaborative and community technology today. There is a chronic undersupply of understanding and learning about how it gets used. That is the gap to fill. Don't waste time and effort with yet another useless feature/function analysis.
Finally, there is already a model of common and customary interaction modalities mapped to popular software offerings. My suggestion is that this simple system archetype needs to be carefully updated and tested against today's markets, perceptions and behavioural requirements for collaboration and community.
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