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What are we trying to solve?
Our default approach to collaborative work seems to be:
- someone has the lead in shepherding a document to its next stage of completeness.
- the owner of the document finds the latest version in an old email from the previous owner, or in a personal folder where they've saved it.
- a copy of the document is mailed to everyone involved.
- contributors make changes in their version and send the edits back, where the owner somehow reincorporates them into the working original.
- that copy is mailed around again, and definitive printouts are made.
Drawbacks to this style of work:
- If the original owner leaves, no one is sure who has the next best "official original".
- When a group is responsible for editing portions of the document, no one is aware of the changes made by the others until it is all integrated and shared.
- When finished, no one knows where to store the finished copy, except that the current owner has it in their inbox somewhere.
What are the documents we could be talking about?
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