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July 19, 2004
Best writing on the ethics of collaboration?
Posted by Clay Shirky
Just had a student ask me a simple but flummoxing question: Is there a good book or essay on the ethics of collaboration? Particularly of collaborative groups with no formal leader?
There’s lots of prescriptive writing out there, and most of it is garbage of the “First, make everything explicit…” variety, and there’s plenty of work on describing individual problems — I already pointed her to Tyranny of Structurelessness and A Dozen Things I Think I Know About Working In Groups.
What she’s asking for though (and what I now want as well) is a good overview on all of the most common dilemmas of such groups — tension between individuals, obstinacy in consensus-driven work, slacking group members, etc. — from a descriptive rather than prescriptive point of view?
Does such a piece of writing exist?
Comments (3)
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1. Bill Seitz on July 19, 2004 4:35 PM writes...
I find "ethics" a fuzzy lens through which to view consensual collaboration. I think "group effectiveness", "game theory" and "exit, voice, and loyalty" have more to offer.
But here are some references
Permalink to Commenthttp://c2.com/cgi/wiki?NoMoreTeams
http://webseitz.fluxent.com/wiki/z2003-12-11-SchumanSharedPurpose
http://www.pfdf.org/leaderbooks/L2L/winter2000/hock.html
http://www.geraldmweinberg.com/Bookstuff/Each_Book/Vol3.html
http://www.geraldmweinberg.com/Bookstuff/Each_Book/Vol4.html
2. Will Davies on July 19, 2004 5:46 PM writes...
There's one called The Nicomachean Ethics by some Greek bloke. It's a bit old now, but covers the basics ;-)
Permalink to Comment3. Jack William Bell on July 20, 2004 12:34 AM writes...
I think the best source of that kind of information would be from the Science Fiction fan community. Especially from those who actually *run* Science Fiction conventions.
Why? SF conventions, with the exception of some of the media stuff (read 'Trekkie'), are nearly always organized and staffed by volunteers. Sometimes it even happens that the convention committee (the organizers) completely flake out at the convention, and it still happens anyway. There are plenty of stories about this kind of thing.
More to the point I have personal experience with all of the issues you mention. All dealt with in the context of an ad-hoc organizational structure made entirely of of volunteers. Often the events we put are are better than the professional ones, and certainly far more fun. There is a saying in fandom: "He who says he thinks something is a good idea has just volunteered to do it."
Some links to check:
* http://www.sfnorthwest.org/fandom.html (list of links about running conventions)
* http://trufen.net (fannish community site, similar to slashdot)
* http://www.sflovers.org/SFRG/ (Science Fiction Resource Guide)
* http://www.sflovers.org/SFRG/sfrgk3.htm (How To archive for the above link)
* http://stilyagi.org/about.html (includes the history of one fannish organization)
Some keywords for googling:
* "SF Convention"
* "con runner"
* concom (Convention Committee)
* SMOF (Secret Master of Fandom)
* Operations AND Convention AND "Science Fiction"
And you can contact me for more information.
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