Collaboration…

So, what is collaboration? Collaboration is an exciting process that for us, as media students, will become very involved in through out edification. It is often employed to allow a group of individuals to as a team to create innovating and exciting concepts around any given project/activity. ‘Forming, storming, norming, performing’ is the formula used to explain collaborative team dynamics and their functions; although a pretty dry summary, it does Successfully explain how many relationships use this process. Comparing this process to ones I have used in previous collaborative work, particularly at school, illustrates how collaboration takes effort to ensure the best possible outcome. In school I found the first idea would often be the one we’d choose and then one individual would often take the brunt of the workload — not very collaborative, if you ask me. In The creative power of collaboration’, Keith Sawyer spoke of the negative effects of collaboration: that the group has the ability to make ‘us all dumber’. Although this is true in some situations I have found I thrive in a group environment as I feel people can add or build to my ideas and excel them to a degree that I otherwise could not. Times I have seen faults in this however, are coy or shy individuals who either due to intimidation or confusion do not talk or contribute their opinions, for a while, I was one of those people. It occurred to me one day that perhaps, it isn’t about having the best ideas, or being the brightest in the group, but accepting that your opinion can bring something entirely new or novice to a concept that no one else had even considered.