Deep Collaboration

Collaboration using software has many meanings and forms. A myriad of tools and technologies enable people to share ideas in real-time or on-demand. However, the level of collaboration these technologies offer is still too superficial, especially when dealing with problems that involve volumes of complex data.

Tools such as screen sharing, portals, message boards, and online meetings all let users collaborate about the data. The discussions and personal assertions still occur on separate threads than the objects of the discussions &mdash the data itself.

The universal uniqueness of data in our systems allows both the hard data and soft data (artifacts of collaboration) to be bundled together. So as data changes or users' assertions are made, all the changes are captured. This tight coupling enables the deep collaboration that users experience when reviewing, editing, and discussing visualizations in real-time.