+2 mace of networking

Collaboration has been the buzzword behind Internet-based productivity ever since Ph.D's started swapping ASCII art over IP. But the explosion of information exchange afforded by technology has also created the additional hurdles of filtering meaningful information and identifying meaningful collaborators. Collaboration is great when you and the offshore consultant brainstorm on a virtual whiteboard; not so good when an intern overwrites your final report.

Fortunately, online gaming seems to provide a better solution than Lotus Notes ever did. That's right, the 20-sided dice crowd are using the World of Warcraft as a platform for networking and collaboration while braining orcs and chatting up wood nymphs. And it's not just sysadmins swapping Linux hacks; C|Net profiled a WoW guild filled with digirati like Joi Ito and Sean Bonner who use the gaming community as a sounding board, development resource, and rolodex.

Joi Ito and others have started calling WoW "the new golf," presumably referencing the social networking opportunities rather than the tedium and frustration involved with both activities. But unlike golf, the Warcraft guilds are comparatively open, and membership is considerably cheaper than at Torrey Pines.

Gaming and geekery have come a long way from dark basements littered with TSR manuals. The subject matter is no different, but role-playing has gone from stigma to phenomenon because technology now enables a richer experience with a broader audience. Communities like Warcraft may seem an unlikely source of collaboration, but they are proof that common experience is one of the best ways to produce meaningful connections in an increasingly dense communications environment.