The System Concepts Laboratory (SCL) of Xerox PARC is in the second year of a research program investigating the support and enhancement of collaboration. To begin, we explain our research goals and operationally define “collaboration” as we have chosen to study it. Then, we describe the environment in which the research takes place, including the two‐site, distributed organization of SCL. In our first year, we have had many experiences that are relevant to understanding collaboration and we present a few of them and discuss how they are affecting the course of our future research. Also, we present a brief discussion of some hypotheses arising from our work so far, in hope of stimulating thought and work in the research of cooperative work.