Collaboration occurs when two or more people interact and exchange knowledge in pursuit of a shared, collective, bounded goal. (132)
Interaction can be indirect. For example, people can communicate by talking, gesturing, writing, or other means of exchanging symbols. You can collaborate with people you never meet. One important form of interaction often found in collaboration is argumentation. (133)
Simply contributing to a shared goal does not constitute collaboration. A janitor working at a company certainly contributes to a company's well-being which indirectly helps that company achieve its goals. But that janitor is not collaborating with the rest of the company unless he or she truly shares the collective, bounded goal. This generally requires interaction with the rest of the company about the overall goal. (134)
What if the janitor reads about the company's goals from its literature, and buys into them? Is that enough interaction for collaboration? (135)
Bounded goals imply a beginning and an end. Two people interacting in order to get smarter is not collaboration. However, two people interacting in order to prepare for a calculus exam is. (136)
Having a shared, collective, bounded goal does not imply that all of the individual goals are the same. Individuals may indeed have their own separate, unique goals. Those goals must be minimally complementary with the shared collective goal in order for collaboration to happen. Individuals must intend to collaborate and be committed to collaboration in order for collaboration to exist. (137)
Collaboration is maximally effective when it results in the creation of a communal mind, when the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. (138)
References (Y6)
Some threads and posts of note: (Y7)