In June 2009, I posted a blog entry that introduced the Collaboration Funnel model for how people with potential ties in a network can find one another to form a community in which members have casual ties and shared interests. This enables people to establish stronger relationships through shared objectives pursued by a team - this is the process of working down the funnel. The reverse can also happen: someone on a team may interact with someone on a different team due to shared interests that may be related to their respective teams' shared objectives. Individually, they maintain profiles on a network, so someone else may find them to ask a question, propose an idea, or engage in some other form of dialogue.
So, what are practical examples of the Collaboration Funnel in action? One that's near and dear to my heart is the Boy Scouts. Scouting provides effective youth training in character, citizenship, and mental and personal fitness. My son recently "graduated" from the Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts. His Boy Scout troop consists of several patrols, each analogous to a team in the Collaboration Funnel model. These teams have shared objectives in earning merit badges and other activities, for which they must collaborate in order to accomplish. Each patrol typically has its own email distribution list (commonly provided by Google Groups or Yahoo Groups), as well as weekly in-person meetings that facilitate frequent communication and collaboration. Each troop typically brings together all of the patrols on a bi-weekly or monthly basis to discuss inter-troop issues, share upcoming events, and celebrate significant milestones and awards. From the perspective of the Collaboration Funnel, I consider the troop simply as a larger team that consists of patrol-based sub-teams.
The troops within a geographic area of up to several counties are part of a district council. For instance, the state of Washington has seven councils. Each council is analogous to a community in the Collaboration Funnel model; there are shared interests amongst the troops within a council, but there are far fewer shared objectives or strong ties. The council communicates with the troops a few times a month and engages them several times a year through district-wide events like camporees. The troops leverage the council as a way to share best practices and maintain consistency of services and expectations. Many corporations have Communities of Practice for the same reasons that the Boy Scouts have councils.
The councils in the United States make up the national organization called Boy Scouts of America, which is a constituent of the World Organization of the Scout Movement. Each national organization is analogous to a network in the Collaboration Funnel model. That is, each scout has only a loose affiliation with his respective national scouting organization. Most scouts rarely encounter other scouts outside of their councils, but of course, social networking services such as Facebook and Twitter have enabled scouts from disparate locations around the world, who maintain an online persona through sharing photos on Facebook or status updates on Twitter, to find and connect with one another with ease. Online community technologies such as forums have broadened the sense and spirit of community beyond the geographic confines of district councils. Nevertheless, the groupings of scouts in local patrols/troops, district councils, and national organizations map well to the teams, communities, and networks in the Collaboration Funnel model in terms of their respective attributes as follows:
The Boy Scouts of America organization is celebrating its 100th Anniversary this year, and throughout the years, more than 110 million Americans have been proud members. So, why can't more corporations be like the Boy Scouts? One possible answer is that most organizations have focused solely on teams - empowering them with technology and autonomy - rather than communities that can nurture casual ties between people with shared interests or networks that can strengthen potential ties based on personal interests.