Metaphors for vrtual collaboration

Posted by  Shawn Callahan —May 21, 2005
Filed in Collaboration

Nancy White draws our attention to some interesting metaphors a startup called Socialtext uses to talk about virtual collaboration:

* Socialtext — the building and garden
* IRC — the hallway
* FreeConference.com — the conference room
* Skype — the meeting rooms
* IM — talking over the cubical
* VNC — peeping over the cubical
* Our blogs — the front porch

I have to admit I don’t know what VNC is and thought IRC was the same as IM. Can anyone enlighten me please.

About  Shawn Callahan

Shawn, author of Putting Stories to Work, is one of the world's leading business storytelling consultants. He helps executive teams find and tell the story of their strategy. When he is not working on strategy communication, Shawn is helping leaders find and tell business stories to engage, to influence and to inspire. Shawn works with Global 1000 companies including Shell, IBM, SAP, Bayer, Microsoft & Danone. Connect with Shawn on:

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6 Comments »

Comments

  1. Ross Mayfield says:
    May 21, 2005

    VNC is virtual network computing — lets people share screens, unless you are programmer you don’t need it, but services like Convoq provide this and WebEx-y presentations
    IRC is internet relay chat — like a chat room open to many kinds of clients

  2. Thommy says:
    May 21, 2005

    VNC
    Offers interaction with the graphical desktop of a remote workstation for Linux, Solaris, Windows, and Macintosh. (Open Source, GPL) ( ref: http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/ )
    and
    IRC would be a place for many people to meet in chatrooms and is abit more open than am IM tool. Where you normally have to “know” the people you are to talk to. more info on: http://www.mirc.com/irc.html

  3. Nancy White says:
    May 22, 2005

    Alphabet soup is fun. This is one of those chasms that keeps coming up.
    What tools does your company use the most?

  4. Shawn Callahan says:
    May 22, 2005

    Thanks Ross and Thommy for the clarifications. Much appreciated.
    Hi Nancy, it’s Shawn Callahan! At Anecdote we use Skype, MSN, Groove and Movable Type.

  5. Denham says:
    May 22, 2005

    IRC vs. IM
    Internet Relay Chat IRC is many to many synchronous communication – using a spatial metaphor (rooms).
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat
    Instant messanging, IM is mostly 1:1 communication that may be a mix of synchronous and asynchronous – often has presence detection and buddy lists.
    ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_messaging

  6. Shawn Callahan says:
    May 22, 2005

    Thanks Denham. Nice, clear explaination.

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