We supposedly live in an era of networked participation, where multiple people can contribute to written works in a meaningful way. So why are our collaborative writing and editing tools so awful? And more to the point, why are so many publishing groups still using the same approaches we used ten years ago?

In this talk, Adam Engst will look at the real-world tools and techniques he and his team have developed over the years for collaborating on the weekly TidBITS newsletter and the Take Control ebook series. In particular, he'll focus on the pros and cons of various tools and techniques for real-time collaboration, iterative editing, and group reviewing in a production environment. He'll finish up with a peek at a spec for a true collaborative writing application that handles change tracking, versioning, commenting, transport, centralized storage, and more. Time will be allotted for the audience to share related experiences and success stories, and to discuss the collaborative needs of modern-day publishing groups.