Towards a theory of successful collaboration - pre-collaboration conversations February 13, 2011

I have this feeling that sucessful collaborations are a mixture of similarity and difference. If I can work out some kind of algorithm for it then maybe someone can help me find suitable collaboration partners more effectively. There has to be an easy way to find people that you want to explore collaboration with.

I like what I learned from Lucy's session  at the Really Free School - RFS - l last week, and I'm thinking how it could transfer easily to our online CotW chats (instead of moving around in a physical space).

Lucy's approach

Lucy started out by dividing the room into four smaller spaces by lying two ropes across the room (from side to side, and end to end, crossing in the centre).

She wanted to find out why the people in the group were at the Really Free School - RFS. (It was a good question. RFS was a squat, organised as a learning venue for two weeks. I think the squat began the week before the learning venue opened - so some people were sleeping and eating there and it had more  of a camp-site/commune/festival feel to it than a "formal educational establishment" feel ).

Maybe we could do soemthign similar to find out why people are at Coalition of the Willing.

Lucy labelled the ends of the ropes, and we stood "where we felt most comfortable". The statements on the ropes were trying to get at people's values and purposes in being at the RFS. The rope laid from end to end was "Community and Activism" at one extreme (call yourself  "plus 5 end to end" if you would have stood there ) and "Occupying the Space" at the other end (call that "minus 5 end to end"). The other rope was "Teaching the people who are here" at one end and "Example to inspire" at the other (plus 5 and minus 5 side to side). Of course we didn't "call" our positions anything - we were in the space so we moved physically to where we felt most comfortable.

Once you have moved to your space it is so easy to start to have meaningful conversations with other people on what does connect you, and what does separate you.

If you find people in the same quadrant as you are in, then I think it could be interesting to  start again, with another pair of questions.

How would it work in CotW?

Well - how about "Structured" at the end of one rope with "emergent" at the other? And then maybe "local-action at one end and national/international-action at the other"?

There are all kinds of ways we could get to see where we "fit" 

• ICT-techie or providing content
• seeking information or providing information
• totally focussed on climate change or involved in many other initiatves

and so on  - different people would make different suggestions  - depending on what pairs of statements they would find helpful.

I think it would be useful to have some kind of "relevance indicator" too.  Perhaps people who didn't find much meaning in the statements could put a not applicable note, people who didn't relly understadn the point or meaning of the statements could put a question mark, and people who cared deeply could flag that up too.

How would Dadamac fit in?

Well I'm emergent rather than structured, and local action rather than national/international. I'm content and community oriented, but keen to connect with techie people (so I'd like some additional statements related to content or techie to help me find the right people - or teams -  there). I'm seeking info, but very willing to provide it as well if anyone is interested in what I know. My climate change interest is part of Dadamac's  integrated approach to learning and development online and on the ground.
 
I'm hoping to find some people who are permaculture and/or apporpriate tech practitioners who have useful tips for the people at the Knoweldge Resource Centre at Fantsuam to pass on to Zittnet and to the team at Attachab. I also want to accelerate the development of Dadamac's  online systems for cross cultural collaboration.

So what kind of collaborators might I be looking for?

• Maybe there are some who would like to go and spend time working on the Attachab site.
• Maybe there are some who will come up with funded exploratory projects that will need field partners - if so we'd like to get in that queue as possible field partners.
• Maybe some of the techies will be looking at collaborative software that would be relevant to the kind of collaborations we manage in Dadamac. I am sure we can learn from them. Maybe they will be interested to know what we have discovered during our approaches to collaboration too, or maybe not.  

I confess Dadamac could do with lots of other kinds collaboration which is not focussed simply on climate change - though arguably related - I have to be careful not to cause confusion by widening the discussion in ways that are not appropriate.