Shirky and Graham are on to something with this idea that we are going to see more and more small, ad-hoc groups pop up that are working on collaborative projects or companies.

Having to establish trust and cohesion with each new group I participate in is definitely going to be a barrier that we’re going to have to work to overcome. There’s an opportunity in here somewhere to provide a work-based reputation that travels with me – an Ebay for projects. I don’t know if it’s going to be a social network like LinkedIn that provides the solution for this or a platform for finding collaborators like oDesk or elance, but I’m excited to see what happens.

Another type of friction we’re going to encounter is losing the knowledge that’s looked up in large organizations regarding the best practices for completing projects. To take the example of startups, it’s not efficient to have each new startup figure out for themselves how to incorporate, how to price a service, how to hold efficient board meetings, etc. This problem of sharing best practices with small groups is something I’m working on solving with a new project called Ativiti – check out our blog if you’d like to read more of our thoughts.

1. The energy (resources) flowing into and out of the project compared to the energy needed to complete the project successfully.

2. The ability of the project to fit into the rules and expectations of the environment (laws, social norms, personal tastes, etc.).

3. Creating an atmosphere in which the team members feel appreciated and supported in their work.

4. Appointing leaders who create a vision of an outcome that everyone agrees is worth the effort they are putting into the project.

Of course the team members will also have to focus on the specific details of making the project a reality, but those four overall organizing elements seem to be crucial to the success of any project, of any kind.

Social trust is a joint investment which is lost in case of a breach. Social networks amplify the trust, because having invested a considerable amount of time into a network, you lose it all if you betray just one member of the network. So, if you have an environment where one would lose a lot through betrayal, you can facilitate collaboration.

I have thought a lot about how to move the sometimes unconscious collaboration patterns from physical environments into virtual ones. It’s expensive to bring the right people to one place.

Odesk, elance and the Mechanical Turk will all need organization layers around them – to be able to handle larger and more complex projects. This is an area of huge opportunity and of many unknowns.

Most definitely interested in joining in.

For now,can I contribute these thoughts:

The sweet spot for any organization will depend in part on the task, available technology, competition, and so on.

Groups who have to form quickly need to pay more attention to that competence.

The support systems will be many. At the high end we have common education and loose systems like Linkedin. Through the systems you are probably interested in. To the daily work of maintaining a team.

Good to have found you.