A Conference With a Difference

I have been arguing that ‘collaboration’ as a word has become hijacked by the software development community. Yet for collaboration to occur there has to be a spirit of collaborative intelligence present in the human beings using the software. Not many software developers mention much about this dimension of the topic. Maybe because it is easier to talk about what software will or will not do, rather than what people will or will refuse to do.

The Defrag conference is described at their site as…. the first conference focused solely on the internet-based tools that transform loads of information into layers of knowledge, and accelerate the “aha” moment. Defrag is about the space that lives in between knowledge management, “social” networking, collaboration and business intelligence. Defrag is not a version number. Rather it’s a gathering place for the growing community of implementers, users, builders and thinkers that are working on the next wave of software innovation.

This sounds promising and I intend to check out on it’s proceedings to see if there is any mention of the ‘user issues’ involved in building collaboration.