Framing the goals of collaboration

I just listened to a podcast from one of the "thought leaders" on collaboration @ avanade. The interviewer asked him how to quantify the benefits of collaboration.  The answer went something like this: "it is hard to quantify, but give the users collaboration tools for a few weeks and then see how hard it is to take them back!".  Gee.  Maybe that explains the numerous Sharepoint deployment craters left behind by avanade. If your thought leadership amounts to "let the users figure it out", perhaps this is not an area of strength for you.