Click on “Download PDF” for the PDF version or on the title for the HTML version.

If you are not an ASABE member or if your employer has not arranged for access to the full-text, Click here for options.

Over the past 10 years there has been in increased interest in the use of collaboration and conferencing tools, where collaboration refers to communications between individuals at multiple sites and conferencing refers to communications between groups of individuals at multiple sites. Each type of tool has moved in a different direction, collaboration toward proprietary based implementations and conferencing toward standards based implementations. The increased interest is aided in part by the penetration of higher speed Internet connectivity as well the enhanced processing power of workstations. This paper will discuss the fundamental differences between collaboration and conferencing technologies and how they developed in different directions including where they are today and where they are heading.

The paper will also explore the challenges of the corporate cultural to the expanded use of collaboration/conferencing tools within and between organizations. At the present time there is a significant lag between the capabilities of collaboration/conferencing tools and their use even within organizations. While some of this lag is a result of past experiences that did not meet the expectations of the users, much of it is based on reasons not related to the technology.