Applications like Socialware (which I highlighted earlier this year in FreshTech Friday, see: http://www.austinstartup.com/2009/02/this-is-no…) are an important part of the solution. At nGenera, we developed out of necessity a “collaboration server” that provides social media listening, federated search, social metadata, and a whole lot more (see: http://www.ngenera.com/software/collaboration-s…) because the awareness and management features it provides are missing. Other start-ups like Pedigree and major players like IBM and Microsoft, will no doubt be introducing such capabilities in future releases.

But, the big thing our research at our Insight unit has shown (validated by the IT analysts from Forrester, AMR, etc.) is that successful enterprise-wide collaboration is a c-level activity. The real benefits of true collaboration (especially in a B-to-B environment) require changed conditions and culture, with some very specific elements that studies show must be present to succeed. Sure they can be stumbled upon or learned by trial-and-error; but, that's an expensive proposition that few large enterprises can afford when you are talking about multi-million dollar investments.

Chapter 11 of Tapscott's seminal work on mass collaboration – Wikinomics – does a good job of providing the some boradstrokes about the necessary conditions for success. I look forward to reading more about the art & science of these principals in the Collaboratory blog going forward.