Remote collaboration can work. It depends alot on how the goal and objectives is defined and relayed to the team. There is a strategy project consulting company in SF Bay Area that trains project teams to collaborate remotely.
Believe you need a Tangible Vision. Know the basics for defining the planned outcome. It is a generalization of fundamentals, technical specifics and cyclical effects
Good viewpoint. As the PM/Marketing guy of a wireless startup, am working with a small product team. Always find it to be challenging to remind the team to focus on developing a product for the needs of the marketplace not what they think they like. Seen too many teams lose track of what they are doing. In most cases, it is their project manager that fails to build a Tangible Vision that the team collaboratively connect to..