Chapter 0:

Introduction

The origins of collaborative work ....

While collaborative work may be somewhat of a trend, it’s definitely not new. Antiquity and the Middle Ages have seen organizations develop based on collaboration and cooperation. Diderot and the scholars of the Enlightenment period also illustrate this idea of collaborative work during the creation of the "Encyclopédie” between 1751 and 1772, where writers and scholars combined their knowledge.

In the 1960s, Yochai Benkler, a law professor at Yale University, published Coase's Penguin, an essay in which he evoked a new model for production and enhanced forms of collaboration.

Indeed, the computer and the Internet have turned working methods on their heads. Collaborative work is becoming increasingly relevant. It’s a way of working with many people through information technology. Tasks are carried out with a common goal and activities are carried out via collaboration rather than by distribution.

The 1970s saw the BBS, Bulletin Boards System grow; a system of electronic newsletters where the server is equipped with software to exchange messages and store and exchange files. A well known BBS In France was Supel. These systems quickly disappeared in the 90s when the first collaborative tools like Yahoo! Groups were brought to life.

Collaborative work remained fairly simple, bidirectional, closed and very restrictive until 2010. The first truly innovative developments involved shared agendas and remote conferences. Today, software publishers offer collaborative spaces, solutions for content creation, collaborative project management, content sharing and document management, as well as, corporate social networks, contact management and more. This means organizations are increasingly relying on computer tools.