Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Business journalist Schrage believes his ideas about collaboration in business, science, and the arts will take managers into the technological future and will replace participatory management ideas espoused by Douglas McGregor in his classic The Human Side of Enterprise (McGraw, 1960; 1985. 25th anniversary ed.). Key elements in the process of collaboration are a group of no more than 12 diverse individuals who have expertise to share; a ``shared space'' where ideas can be displayed as a kind of common property; and a tangible product (rough draft, report, long-range plan) ready by the end of the collaboration session which all participants can take away with them. Much of this might just as effectively have been presented as a long magazine article; however, libraries will find this fills a unique niche in their business collections.-- Laurie Tynan, Montgomery Cty.-Norristown P.L., Pa. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Collaboration is a fundamental yet underappreciated force in business, the arts and sciences, stresses Schrage, columnist for the Los Angeles Times. Most organizations, he observes, lack structures that allow people to pool their talents creatively. In place of the bastardized American notion of ``teamwork,'' he advocates genuine collaborative interaction aided by ``shared spaces'' like blackboards or brainstorming sessions. One chapter demonstrates how shared computer screens can reduce the politics and boredom of corporate meetings. Though he sometimes belabors the obvious, Schrage has written a trailblazing guide to help people in diverse fields move from mere communication to true collaboration. Snippets on such duos as Picasso/Braque, F. Scott Fitzgerald/Maxwell Perkins and Francis Crick/James Watson (co-discoverers of DNA's double helix) throw light on the collaborative process. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

Writing about creativity is necessarily abstract and theoretical because the creative process itself is both abstract and elusive. Collaboration, or the group creative process, is similarly difficult to describe, but analysis can focus on specific interaction among group members. Now, Schrage, a popular writer specializing in technology and business, brings a new dimension to the study of creativity and innovation by illustrating how new computer technologies such as computer models and simulation, sophisticated spreadsheet data manipulation, electronic "chalkboards," and networking can facilitate and enhance collaborative effort. He particularly emphasizes the ability of electronic communications to bring together people of differing disciplines and backgrounds and in disparate physical locations. Schrage also emphasizes that although computers can enhance collaboration, it is still up to humans to initiate it. Written after Schrage spent a year as visiting scholar at MIT's Media Lab, Shared Minds is full of intriguing, fresh insights and ideas. No index. --David Rouse

Kirkus Book Review

Here, Schrage, former chief technology writer for the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, tries to go beyond mere teamwork and coordination in the work-place to describe and analyze how businesses can foster collaboration. In Schrage's view, two heads are much better than one--genuine collaboration results in a product whose whole is greater than the sum of its parts. He argues that management is typically more concerned about coordinated actions than shared creation--the sort of collaboration represented by the work of DNA co-discoverers Watson and Crick or musical-theater greats Rodgers and Hammerstein. Organizations can ""communicate"" until they are blue in their collective faces, says Schrage, without achieving much more than a stack of hostile, self-justifying memos. Schrage argues that ""[it] takes shared space to create shared understandings."" As a classic example of shared space, he offers the blackboard, where collaborators can jot down their thoughts; the modern equivalent is computer, augmented collaboration. For example, Schrage points out, Xerox's Colab is built around a team interface concept called WYSIWIS (""what you see is what I see""). WYSIWIS allows participants to use a large community screen with multiple windows that can be enlarged, shrunk, moved around, linked, clustered, or stored. The collaboration takes place directly on the screen, which all participants share and control, permitting visual images and spoken language to work synergistically to create mutual understanding. Schrage goes on to discuss ""collaborative architectures"" and ways to redesign workspaces to foster collaboration, suggests 13 ingredients to success collaboration (""competence""; ""mutual respect, tolerance, and trust,"" etc.), and closes with a chapter titled ""The One-Minute Collaborator,"" a summary of ""how to create a computer-augmented collaborative tool."" An ambitious but not wholly successful attempt to analyze and quantify the delicate, ineffable art of collaboration--and thus of more theoretical than practical interest, despite the advice to businesspeople that Schrage offers in his concluding chapter. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.