I read an interesting article in Campus Technology this morning called "Campus IT Collaboration Evolves" by Terry Calhoon. It's mostly about IT collaboration in higher education. Terry submits that folks in higher ed are more collaborative than others. This is something I think about quite a bit since nearly everything I do professionally is centered on important collaborative efforts like Sakai and Kuali.

I'm not an academic, or a scientist, but I do consider myself part of 'education' in the larger sense and part of the IT collaboration movement in education. I spend as much time collaborating with folks at Indiana University, Stanford, University of Michigan and Michigan State, Syracuse, Marist, Delta College, Virginia Tech, and so on as with people working in the office down the hall. From my perspective the 'collaboration gene' is going to be a determining trait for natural selection in the coming decade. Those that can skillfully overcome the challenges to working over distance and time, across organizational and cultural boundaries, will be a part of what's going on and those that can't will be isolated and less productive.

I wonder if the academy is doing enough to bake collaboration into the DNA of the future workforce. There are some very interesting initiatives at Virginia Tech and Marist College to get more students involved in large-scale IT collaborations like Sakai & Kuali. But if the collaboration gene is going to be one of those determining traits, then I think it will need to be a more integral part of the education experience. Maybe it is?