In speaking with our customers about the services we provide, one thing strikes me above all else… And that is this one phrase: there’s just something about collaborating online. In our experience, and I’d point to our interview with a Buffalo Wild Wings franchisee, what has been so remarkable is how the web levels the playing field. It opens up information and ideas to the point where improvements/opportunities/challenges/communication occurs more rapidly. Our customers tell us that being able to log in to the reporting Dashboard to review operational data, creates flexibility on how information comes to them (knowledge is available). How they use it, how they consume it, share it and when is now up to them…

But beyond our application and services, do you agree with the premise of this post? That collaborating online fosters a greater sense of creativity, of sharing, of power to the group?

Clay Shirky, the author of Here Comes Everybody, posits that if you build cooperation into the infrastructure, you make groups flat and more coordinated… Think so? Check out the video below from a 2008 TED TALK, in which Shirky makes a case about institutions vs collaborations.