HELP!
Today we were lucky to have Stanley Nyoni, senior consultant at The Natural Step International spend some time chatting with FAR about our project. Stanley wasted no time knocking us down a few notches, stumping us with ridiculously complicated questions like:
"What is Collaboration?"
"Why is collaboration different than partnership?"
"How does collaboration help us?"
FAR collectively mumbled some excuses about needing to 'hit the books' and tried to scrap together some semblance of meaningful conversation- but we thought maybe you, our diligent blog readers, might have a better idea. What do you think about collaboration- why should we do it? So really what we're saying is- hey Val- what does collaboration mean to you?
In case you need a place to start, Stanley highlighted the skeleton of collaboration- the basics we are striving to elaborate on in our thesis and in the Brave New Collaboration wiki. Thanks Stanley for a great talk, and helping us get back to basics. Alright the skeleton of collaboration:
- Collaboration is a choice- so why would you make that choice?
- If we do chose to participate- it's likely based on the assumption that there is something to gain- some benefit to be derived...
- So how, once we engage collaboratively, do we ensure all those benefits are realized?
- And finally- maybe collaboration isn't a good thing. Specifically, maybe collaboration using the web, isn't a good thing. Maybe it violates our needs- rather than supporting our needs. Obviously FAR scoffed at this ridiculous idea and promptly laughed Stanley right back to Stockholm, but we thought we'd do him justice and allow you readers to consider that angle as well.
All sounds pretty simple right? We thought so too. So just let us know what you think, and we'll plop it right on in to that little thesis paper.
Posts
http://www.klima2008.net/index.php
ReplyDeleteThis was an revolutionary online conference about climate change which anabled academics to collaborate to creat an open access conference with zero co2 emissions from travel. Very good use of technology to promote sustainability.
Sam
I see collaboration as the act of working together in the creation of some thing. That thing can be anything, economic policy, an opera, a spaceship, anything. Collaboration can bring viewpoints, needs, and ideas to the table that wouldn't have had voice without the collaborative effort. Bringing new viewpoints to the table can be a very good thing, but it can also be counterproductive.
ReplyDeleteMy interpretation can be exemplified in music.
Take Mozart as an example. He was a musical genius, producing a number of classic works of tremendous beauty. To play many of these works he needed many musicians trained in their instruments and willing to follow his orders. He had (and has) a partnership with these musicians in that they agree to play his music the way he wanted it played. They bring their training to the table, but don't add their own notes or ideas to the music. If they did, it would no longer be the work of Mozart, it may be better or worse, but it wouldn't be the same. Their partnership is an agreement between parties to accomplish something, but not all parties add ideas and creativity.
Take on the other hand the Grateful Dead. They also make beautiful music (haha, gotta love the hippie dancing Rebecca), but they exemplify a collaboration. Each musician brings his skill, but also his ideas and style to the group. They each play music that arises out of their individual imaginations, yet it comes together to weave a collective tapestry that is more than the sum of it's individual parts, ultimately the goal of any collaboration.
I think that the ultimate difference between collaboration and partnership is whether all entities involved are adding creativity and intellectual capital to the project. As I've tried to illustrate in the Mozart example, many times collaboration is a good thing, yet sometimes it is not. I like my Mozart just fine how it is.
"wether all entities involved are adding creativity and intellectual capital"
ReplyDeletegenius. love the distinction- and the example. And no one is supposed to know about my hippie dancing Iain!
Interesting word collaboration heard many time but never thought that, in my point of view, in partisanship you have business goal where both parties motive it is to gain some thing. Most of the time it is more close to business, but when i think about collaboration it seems to me an joint venture of intellectual, creative, artistic people, their goal is to produce a master piece or to achieve good cause. e.g. If we talk about music. i heard a song it's name was collaboration in that song their were various well know singers from two different countries, and the end product i.e. the song was great. Similarly in our Software Engineering degree at BTH, we have course of Requirement Engineering which was thought by two professor, one has 15 years industry experience and other has 15 years of academia experience, so we the call this duo a partnership its sheer collaboration.
ReplyDeleteI just came across a study whereby staff in a factory wouldn't work at full capacity because they didn't see the point given the financial return - "self - limitation" within an organisation.
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering what would be the effect of a more collaborative work mode on this situation? (The study was by Donald Roy (1952), but I think it has been repeated since then).
i just thought i'd share a tangible example of where collaboration is needed for sustainability. had a woman from AASHE (assoc. for advancement of sustain. in higher ed.) visit my class last fall who was looking for advice on how to increase the number of universities to sign onto the american college and university presidents climate committment (whew long name--acronym ACUPC!--reba you've probably heard of it). anyway, she said that many university presidents have hesitated signing on because they were unsure how to achieve the goals stated in the agreement. think about all the wasted energy if all of these schools go about independently trying to "re-invent the wheel" and design programs to meet the climate goals of the agreement. collaboration between the schools would clearly produce efficiency on the road to sustainability.
ReplyDeleteenough rambling....go FAR!
I thought of a motto that's in search of a home, and FAR is the only possible user of it I can think of yet (though I don't know if it really fits...):
ReplyDelete"We put the BORAT in COLLABORATION"
Eh?