There is a rapidly emerging need to deal with distributed sources of data (sensors, web sites, databases). By recognizing their limited accessibility while acknowledging benefits of pursuing collaborative processing, we propose a concept of a distributed and collaborative framework of Computational Intelligence (CI). The variety of possible mechanisms of interaction is organized into a setting of the C^3 (communication -- collaboration -- consensus) paradigm. This helps us offer taxonomy of various schemes of interaction which in the sequel leads to a suite of detailed algorithms. The role of granular information and granular computing in the establishing the mechanisms of interaction is emphasized and investigated.