Soda - Keeping Curious

In collaborative heaven people get involved because they find their particular project stimulating, energising and downright exciting. See, not once (in what is admittedly one short sentence) have I mentioned the word money. People don’t collaborate because it pays well. Actually that’s not true either. People collaborate for all sorts of reasons and with all sorts of underlying aims, however, the point is, they see a point in collaborating. That by collaborating they can achieve a much better outcome, for themself, for their group, for their organisation and quite possibly for mankind in general.

Working on the principle of a ‘better’ outcome could also result in the accumulation of huge amounts of capital, Social Capital. This potent form of global currency is worth accumulating, and people’s future wealth may well depend on how much social capital they’ve managed to make come their way; as will the company they work for and the projects they choose to devote time to.

Collaboration and social capital might not yet be firmly linked in people minds, but there’s growing evidence to suggest that the Net Generation are well aware of the latter, having leveraged it’s importance by intrinsically believing in the former.

So next time you have one of those ‘Every man for himself moments’, pause for a second, and if it doesn’t feel too much of a Monty Python-moment think ‘Wait a minute, I have high net worth when it comes to social capital, I can collaborate myself out of this mess!’

Go on, get your invitation engine revving on Linkedin, launch your blog and get collaborating on boundaryless project that have a worthwhile outcome. Because remember, you’re never need be alone again if you collaborate.

I just sped through Seth Godin’s book The Dip, which asks you at the end to write down the reasons why you’d quit a project, job, mastering a new sport or musical instrument, or whatever. All the time I was reading The Dip I kept thinking of mass collaboration, and under what circumstances I would quit wanting to be the authority on that subject. Seth Godin considers it smart to quit doing things that have led you into a cul-de-sac, or bore you, or leaves you being average. Few intentionally seek to end up in those states but life can just (often) turn out like that for us. I try and avoid all three, and loads more mind-numbing outcomes, but still find myself doing things which I should really stop, or quit, doing. To give mass collaboration my best shot I should (will) quit:

Watching so much evening TV, spreading myself too thin, tripping-up my capabilities, seeking others approval, forgeting that I am at heart a creative person, limiting my expecations on what I can achieved, thinking that the time or day dictates what you should be doing, finding excuses not to play PS2 games with my son, thinking this blogpost can be done tomorrow, thinking real success and happiness belongs to other more worthwhile people (actually I’m generally a happy soul, I think) daaah, must quit doing that.

Our interest has never exclusively be in just commenting on collective thinking, but rather making it happen. This project has a kind of self-fulfilling prophesy built-in to it, as the more we talk, the more we do, and the more we do the more alive it becomes for all involved.

As mentioned earlier in these posts, creativity and the pursuit of innovation is itself an emergent process, which is what we’re witnessing here. If the initial ‘gift of knowledge’ came from me, then others are adding and growing that gift in true collaborative fashion, taking it to a new place and a much quicker rate than any individual can do. So why should this be so?

Well it’s not because collaboration has become easier (although for the majority it’s natural to collaborate) it rather that the barriers to collaboration, easy collaboration, no-brainer collaboration have all dropped away due to our expertise in utilising the internet, the email and the mobile phone as end to end communciation platforms. These tools have made the job of creation, distribution, redistribution and feedback easy for all of us. Now the genie is firmly out of the box, there’s no putting him back. So where does that leave industries such as marketing going forward? Well, I got my own firm point-of-view on that, as you can guess.

Within Together the mass collaboration team are on a roll. Whilst I’ve been busy getting out there and spreading the message whilst Nat, Nick and the rest of the team are in infrastructure mode, developing the web presence and the overall creative approach that underpins our spin on the mass collaboration story. We refer to mass collaboration as ‘Big Page Thinking’ , a nifty concept thought up by the team, that challenges you with the intriguing question, ‘How many ideas can you fit on a piece of paper? Well we’d say, “Depends on how big the piece of paper is.”

We’re bringing the ‘Big Page Thinking’ idea to life by producing a poster illustrating hundreds of ideas that have come straight-out of the teams’ notebooks. As these ideas literally unfold from a piece of A4 paper to reveal a huge A1-sized poster, we instantly ‘get’ the awe-inspiring implications of involving collective intelligence in developing fresh, innovative ideas.
This work is really bringing the team together and is sparking off fresh ideas on how to carry ‘Big Page Thinking’ out into the brand-world. Individuals have moved from an initial defensive position, that seemed to ask the question, ‘Isn’t that my job to provide clients with new ideas? , to one of “Hey, isn’t it now my task to try and facilitate a new mode of creativity, that, whilst a little scary, is actually an exciting journey into unknown, fertile territory”.

Here’s to ‘Big Page Thinking’ and beyond

If you’ve ever dipped into these posts over the last few years you’ll know that I study architecture and that architects hold a special fascination for me. I say ‘ fascination’ because my hackneyed image of the highly creative ‘artist’ battling against the odds to get his buildings made is, shall we say, a little bit too ‘Hollywood’. However, Ghery, Khan, Le Courbusier and Johnson remain important examples of what can be achieved over a long, long period of time. Isn’t it better to have 3 or 4 masterpieces that live on, than to have designed 70-80 indifferent buildings that time can afford to ignore.

You’ll also know that I really appreciate the fact that many a now famous architect didn’t get into his stride until having turned 50. The passage of time is such an important element in architecture, which is perhaps something that really true architects understand.

Living, as we do, in this speeded-up world, we need to remind ourselves (re-educate) to re-engage in a different notion of time, one that sees us percieving it not as an enemy that thwarts us, but rather as an ally that grounds us. So, take your time (medical science will only continue to increase our life spans) and seek to do worthwhile projects, because you’ve most probably got (much) longer than you think.

We’re right in the middle (only a week to go) of launching a new agency that’s set to focus on green and sustainable issues within the marketing arena. This, I would like to think, is timely, having just picked-up on Sir Martin’s Sorrell’s latest industry speech, which focuses on how the economy looks to be turning from a era of ’super consumption’ to one of ‘responsible purchase’.

Either one of those two expressions deserves a plethora of blog entries, for and against the motion. However, my simple point for today has to do with ’sustainable relationships’, the by-product of responsible purchase, and how we marketeers shouldn’t think that the word ’sustainable’ need only apply to just products and services; seeing as it’s greatest use may well become attached to our view of customers. So next time you find yourself in any of the following modes: recycling planning, food miles calculation or carbon offsetting, please also spare a thought as to how you should also be implementing a ’sustainable relationship’ plan.

We sincerely love our lists when we want to turn business theory into business practice. You could bet good money on the fact that such an engaging activity as collaboration
would have it’s own list of step-by-step actions. So eyes down and look in at the 5 C’s of Mass Collaboration. (This being itself a form of collaboration).

Core - donating a ‘gift of knowledge to kick the whole thing off
Contribute - get people involved with differing skills and viewpoints
Connect - the more combinations a community can create, the more innovation there is
Collaborate - this works best when there’s responsible self-governace
Create - we’re talking mass social creativity that thrives on many creators and differing skills

Looked at as a whole the 5 C’s process can be applied to any emergent phenomena, such as innovation (the key competitive advantage in business) and it’s associated behaviour, creativity. It’s interesting to note that the rapid development of the Web by millions of prosumers has been brought about by the same inbuild process we adopt for creating objects in the real world. Looked at in this way, the Web appears to be as much a product of all of our creativty as it is of technology.

I’m a bit behind the curve ball on this one seeing as Stephen Johnson’s book Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software came out 5 years ago, but I’d just like to draw your attention to the emergence phenomena that pops up time and again in the reading I’m doing on ‘mass collaboration’. For a concise definition of this phenomena I’m tip my hat to R Keith Sawyer’s book ‘Explaining Creativity’ (another example of an emergent phenomena).

“Emergence
Concepts are combined in a complex system of higher level concepts, and each of the component concepts is itself changed
by its participation in the higher concept. Because the parts change when they are combined together, the new concept can’t
be understood by breaking it apart into its component concepts and studying them in isolation”.

Now, doesn’t that just about describe how open source projects and wikis come into being and evolve in the first place? As I said, you can also apply this concept to the process of innovation, which could be why the self-organising web is bringing out the creative in us all, because both systems are a mirrior image of the other.

Were revolutionaries of old just a cut above the ones we have today? I ask this question because listening to Radio 3 (the serious classical one)on the way to work this morning, I learnt that Beethoven’s overture ‘Egremont’ was the leitmotif for the 1956 Hungarian Uprising. Played excessively and insistently by Hungarian radio, it became the rallying anthem of the popularist moment, inspiring students to take to the streets, with a spirit of renewed nationalism, to defend their country and their rights against the Soviet ‘invasion’.

In the course of absorbing this fact, and no doubt inspired by the Beethoven piece being played, I wondered why modern nationalist movements (scary concept) no longer call upon the emotional and intellectual input of a Smetena or a Sibelius or a Dvorak to provide themes to stir the heart and unite the people. (Perhaps because a lot of contemporary serious music doesn’t concern itself with all that melodious, romantic, heart-stirring stuff).

As much confined to history as the nationalist movements they supported, these musical ‘revolutionaries’ found inspiration in their country’s past and its attachment to its physical geography. Folksongs were religiously collected, long-forgotten nationalist heroes revived and the long-discarded landscape rediscovered. Akin to a brand that’s lost its way going back to basics, many a late nineteenth and early twentieth composer dug deep into their nation’s psyche to conjured-up past achievements to inspire people to a better future.

With reference to my post yesterday, if your next project could benefit from having a soundtrack, then why not raid the music store and pick-up a few stellar examples that ram home the point that there’s nothing quite like a good bit of music to inspire humans to achieve greater things. Come to think of it, why doesn’t music feature more in corporate life, especially in those visioning and positioning exercises so beloved by marketing directors? Think of Smetena, Sibelius and Dvorak as supreme examples of repositioning gurus, (there’s a new thought) who used the medium of abstract sounds to convey brand essence. Now that sounds like the basis of a good idea to me, when you’re next lost for words to decribe what you’re all about. Why not try music instead. Shostakovich, for some unexplicable reason, works for me.

Does your project have a soundtrack? I’ve found that a project, be it a web-build, strategy piece or prepping for a conference presentation, benefits from having its own associated music. For instance, I’m currently putting the ‘mass collaboration’ presentation together to an undercurrent of music from Philip Glass and Max Richter. The right music can provide atmosphere, light and shade to a project, in the same way movie music does.

Having a project dedicated soundtrack allows me to get straight back into the right mood and method of thinking about that project, as if hearing the associated music throws the appropriate switches in my brain and bingo off I go on the same chain of thought as last time. So go on, give it a bash and use your next project opportunity to introduce an atmospheric soundtrack into the mix. But don’t blame me when, lost in thought, you’re also caught humming or strumming along to the soundtrack playing in your head.