A camel is a horse designed by a committee. It's an old joke and, as such, speaks to a deep-seated suspicion of group work, as does the old saw about too many cooks spoiling the broth. The theory is that groups of people cannot produce a good product, because everyone's opinion has weight and has to be acted on.

So what are we to make of the current interest in groupwork, collaboration and crowdsourcing. Vendors and pundits are all pushing a brave new world in which crowd consensus replaces the wisdom of the single expert, and Backbone's annual predictions issue cover story was right there: many of the eight predictions touted some form of collaboration. 

First, collaborative work offers many benefits. Often groups do come up with ideas an individual would never have generated. Group work tends to be more dynamic and the process may move along more quickly as each participant becomes engaged in the exercise. And hierarchical, top-down companies are often slower to change and innovate; inviting more people to do corporate-think is the remedy to that.

So there's lots of good in this new idea, but here's a note of caution: people like shiny ideas and therefore new things tends to get over used. In this context, that means if you have a problem, well, the answer must be to collaborate on it. And to keep collaborating until the answer materializes.

That is going to play out this year. The techies have done a lot to make collaborative technology workable on a broad scale, and that's good. But we're going to see bandwagon jumpers who believe that they have have found the ideal hammer for every nail. And that's bad. So 2008, and probably 2009, will also see collaboration go too far and get used when it's not really appropriate. Remember, if Mozart had called a meeting to debate his composition of the Piano Concerto No. 24 and then incorporated everyone's ideas, it is highly unlikely we would know that piece of music today.

Collaborative work is set to change the way companies and individuals operate and the approach will generate significant innovations that would not have occurred otherwise. Pick up Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams to read about successes that have already occurred. But like most big ideas, there is a learning curve during which collaborative work will also see some failures and some bad press before we all figure out how to get along with each other.

Peter Wolchak