“Virtual Real Communities” and Cooperative Visualization

In a global world we face the necessity for worldwide collaboration and long-term co-creation. We know different kinds of internet platforms and examples of successful remote team work within projects for a limited time but we do not have much experience about computer sustained communities working successfully beyond projects and generations with different cultures and conflicting interests. The challenge is to build and to maintain a very specific kind of virtual community realizing a successful mix of “real” (face-to-face) and “virtual” (remote) qualities creating a platform for successful dialogue between diverse points of view. The contribution describes key qualities for creating such communities. It is about how to build the bridge between technical potentials and human qualities for establishing cross-cultural and long-term processes beyond face-to-face work. The presented experiences are based on the creation of an open and frank dialogue culture consequently using cooperative visualization from the first step of the collaboration process.