The universal working assumption is that productivity depends on collaboration, but there’s no agreement on what’s the best way to achieve it. While the market for digital tools, platforms, teleconferencing and software to facilitate collaboration is worth nearly US$20bil , technology alone isn’t the answer. In the end, it’s about the humans, not the machines.

For one, the understanding of teamwork predates the widespread use of office technology. Bruce Tuckman and Mary Jensen wrote a model of group development back in 1977. Their five-stage “forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning” process still stands as key to designing the iterative process of collaboration.

For instance, the “norming” phase is when a group gets into the teeth of a project and learns to trust each other and assign roles, while “performing” relies on interdependence. In a testament to the endurance of their principles, Slack, one of the highest performing collaboration software providers, cited them in a 2019 blog post.

The mid-70s were a rich seam for management theory and coincided with the start of what I describe in my book The Nowhere Office As The Mezzanine Years (the time between the supremacy of offices and a tech-enabled future which could operate outside them). It’s important to frame the plethora of technological platforms and applications which have flooded increasingly into the workplace as only ever as good as the human minds using them. Nothing can replace this - the technology is a utility to augment the creativity and dynamics of what happens when people work together.

That said, the development of technology to support people working is impressive and reflects that the workplace isn’t a fixed place all the time anymore for increasing numbers of white collar workers. Not only are we seeing the rapid evolution of dominant players, such as Zoom Video Communications Inc, moving beyond teleconferencing but new models of co-working apps like Polywork and hybrid working platform Kadence underscore the reality that collaboration isn’t always done from an office. In September, for example, remote jobs were 14% of all posts on LinkedIn, but got 52% of US applications.

The more new technology supports new patterns of work and keeps it simple and user-friendly the more it’s likely to succeed. Let’s not forget that perhaps the best example of an early workplace collaboration tool is Google Docs, designed sixteen years ago by Jen Mazzon. She wrote at the time “everyone told us it was crazy to try and give people a way to access their documents from anywhere - not to mention share documents instantly, or collaborate online within their browsers”.

Everyone knows the pain point of a badly designed interface or something overly complex: Phrase of the year may well be Toggling Tax, from a Harvard Business Review paper showing the sheer scale of interactions required these days to switch between different applications. Which is why the clunky complexity of the metaverse makes me wonder whether it will ever live up to the hype as being the next big thing in collaboration enabling technology.

It’s thirty years since the phrase “metaverse” was used in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 sci-fi story Snow Crash. He correctly predicted the possibility of a real-time synchronous 3D world in which digital facsimiles of humans - also known as avatars - will unite and enhance co-working and community. The metaverse currently looks like it’s in a distinctly beta phase when it comes to being used for collaboration, notwithstanding that the global market is predicted to grow by 50% by 2029. This is partly because at the moment it just doesn’t seem cool. Let’s not forget the story that the European Commission was left with egg on its face trying to attract Gen Z to engage with them by throwing a metaverse party which few attended.

The metaverse isn’t working yet because it’s putting technological design before function. Analysts at Tech Target noted that industry watchers have questioned if the metaverse will ultimately be much different from the digital experiences we have today or if the masses will be willing to spend hours in a headset navigating digital space. Recent research by the University of Primorska’s Faculty of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Information Technologies shows significant productivity losses and mental health issues from trying to work in virtual reality for prolonged periods of time.

All of which brings us back to the human in the machine age. As long as collaboration technology is underpinned by collaboration management in the next phase of work, the teams that come together can get their work done. Whether in-person, in-cyberspace or in between.

 - Bloomberg