Perhaps the greatest barrier to collaboration, and fun for that matter is lack of communication. Talk, chat, converse, explain your perspective. If people just replied "can I explain what I hear you saying," or "am I understanding what you say..."
Solutions:
Some new tech enables communication beautifully:
VIDEO:
Commoncraft is one of the best:
If you have your own photos and video, no need to hire a video editor with fancy effects. Animoto does it all for you:
PHOTOS:
Flickr Creative Commons Photos are the best way to communicate with photos. Simply use Advanced Search and select Creative Commons Attribution photos and use and accredit them. Simply beautifully descriptive:
Mind Maps:
Organizing information the way the mind thinks and relates: visually. Sometimes known as Graphic Facilitation. Check out some of the experts.
Image by The Value Web
Scribing:
In addition to Mind Mapping, Scribing, of Visual Facilitation or Note Taking helps larger groups collaborate more effectively by sharing the same set of facts and messages spoken by the group. There are countless examples available. This picture is an example of scribing from the World Economic Forum in 2008. A great article on types of scribing by Aaron Williamson is here.
Image by The Value Web
Metaphors:
Using videos as metaphors to explain your collaboration point can be very effective. TED Talks are some of the best: