Real collaboration via technology

I will most likely be focusing on collaborative tools for a little while.  If you're a follower, you know it's long been an area of interest for me, and recently I had the opportunity to work with some tools that brought it back to the forefront of my work (lucky me!)

To refresh - I think that true collaboration can be fostered by the innovative use of technology.  I think that information sharing and network building and reinforcing can be fostered by the innovative use of technology.  I do not think that the use of technology can create collaboration or information sharing (different than data sharing!), but it can foster, create pathways for, enable, enhance, etc collaboration and information sharing.  

For those of us who have spent their careers using technology to enhance networks and share information among  them, there are a lot of questions that have been coming up as of late:

• Collaboration is a big buzz word these days, but what does industry mean by it? 
• There are a lot of 'collaboration tools' out there, but how are people using them?  And how should they be using them?
• Do these new collaboration tools really get the job done?  
• How far can technology really take us?
• What are the benefits and drawbacks to broad collaboration? (yep, there are drawbacks). 

So, stay tuned.  My outlet at work for this stuff is drying up, so expect to be seeing more of it here.