Music: The most collaborative art form of them all. It often takes a range of people - musicians, vocalists and producers - to make a track happen. Here are two inspiring examples:
Red Bull Music Academy The Red Bull Music Academy is a travelling initiative which selects 60 up and coming musicians to undertake a two week residency. As well as a mixture of lectures, seminars, opportunities to perform and socialising, participants also have ample studio time to work (or play, whichever way you want to look at it!) on their music. Listen to ‘Various Assets – Not For Sale’ a compilation CD of some of the tunes from the 2008 academy in Barcelona and you’ll find that every track has a freshness that will blow you away. Most of them are brand new collaborations between different participants. The incubator environment enables people, within a relatively short space of time, to form ad hoc partnerships and groups. This results in a range of unique outcomes and an energy that can be felt throughout the CD. The whole process sounds magical.
Phlash & Friends - Phil Asher In one of Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide podcasts (volume 1, no 36), Phil Asher describes how “90%” of the tracks on his CD Phlash & Friends, released in March 2009, were made by sending bits back and forth via ichat (an instant messaging service for Mac users) and email between other musicians. As suggested by the title, there is a long list of collaborators, some of which were based overseas. Although Asher mentions that he missed the vibe and atmosphere of producing in the studio he proves that it can also be done virtually, and perfectly, when the need comes. (A quick search showed that there are dedicated sites and tools for online music collaboration. For example, Kompoz allows musicians to upload tracks and invite others to add and modify them )
Asher also gives some advice to new musicians - London is a great place to be and they’ve got to get out there, meet people and find opportunities to work with others. The beauty of the Red Bull Music Academy is that it facilitates this but with individuals from all over the globe, giving participants the opportunity to meet those they might not have had the chance to meet.
It’s clear that the energy of a group of creatives spending a day in a room together, face-to-face and offline, produces amazing results. But they can also open themselves up to additional opportunities - for example, working with other talented individuals across continents - by also using online communication and collaboration tools.
I recently bought this print by Ornamental Conifer at the “Power in Numbers” Cure Studio/Print Club show. The simplicity of the phrase struck a chord with Bracket:
"If we all got together it might just work" by Ornamental Conifer
I asked the artist where the phrase came from:
My friends and I were thinking up ideas for the Power in Numbers show and it sprung to mind that if we collectively came up with a great idea we might just get picked. Sadly this tangent never came to be as we all wandered off in our own direction when it finally came to submitting our work.
And when I asked what the ‘it’ referred to:
‘It’ was referring to whatever ‘it’ is you aspire to attain, collectively and with the support of others we can achieve awesome greatness.
I couldn’t agree more!
Ornamental Conifer is a big fan of stating the obvious, and the phrase “if we all got together it might just work” is a perfect example of this. I even wonder why, in today’s society, there isn’t a motto like this for the creative sector. We’re facing lots of different challenges locally, nationally and globally - artists have the potential, and the ability, to get together and create some great solutions!
Being creative doesn’t just happen between 9am and 5pm – you can’t switch it on and off. Good ideas come at the most unexpected moments, and that spark of inspiration can happen spontaneously. So when you’re working on a project within a team, how can you capture that creative spark and share it almost instantly?
Last week I picked up Great Place to Work’s® supplement on the UK’s Best Workplaces. Flicking through, I stopped on the article which discussed the future of the workplace. It discussed how we’re moving to flatter and more collaborative workplaces, where temporary project teams come together based on the skills of freelance individuals/consultants and then disperse when the project is done. This is nothing new to the creative industries – we’ve been working like this for years (as mentioned in a previous post, Richard Florida, Charles Leadbeater & Kate Oakley and John Howkins highlighted this 7-plus years ago). However, what *is* new is the technology that supports and enhances this way of working.
The good thing about social media, like any of the internet, is that it can be accessed and used at any time of day. If you’re using social media tools to communicate within a project, you can upload, comment on and edit ideas when you feel the need – even if that’s in the middle of the night – and it’s all kept in one place for easy tracking. For example, Google Docs allows people to work on the same document so there aren’t a million iterations to collate and follow. And for more creative-based working, there are tools like the brilliant Aviary – a site which has an online image editor, vector editor, colour palettes and visual laboratory (with other tools like font creators, desktop publishing, and 3D modellers in the pipeline) all of which can be shared with others to view and edit.
What’s even more exciting is that there some mobile phone applications popping up, enabling you to access social media, not just at different times of the day, but when you’re out and about away from your laptop. Spotted something that’s relevant for the project, or provides inspiration? Take a picture on your mobile and share it instantly using Shozu. Are you at an event that the other team members can’t make it to in time? Use Bambuser to create a live stream direct from your phone for your collaborators to watch! Although these tools post to online networks as opposed to specified project teams, they are still a step in the right direction in capturing creativity whilst on the move.
So yes, collaborative working is nothing new to the creative industries and we’ve achieved great things so far. But now there are online tools designed specifically to support this way of working and if we make effective use of them, then we can probably achieve far greater things!
Healthy and effective collaborations require trust to encourage free-flow of ideas, contributions and actual delivery of the work. But trust is abstract – you’re relying on the actions of others to get things done. When you’re working on your own you can maintain control over everything you create, so essentially when you collaborate you’re taking a risk.
What are the risks in collaborating?
The risks of collaborating for an individual creative practitioner /business include:
1. Damage to reputation – the quality of the outcome may be lower than independently-produced creative work
2. Creative ideas being ‘stolen’
3. Losing money, time or other resources
4. Efforts go unrecognised/undervalued/un-credited (thanks Bruno for this one!)
(remember these - they’re re-visited at the end of this post!)
Establishing trust
Trust can take a long time to develop, so what happens when you’re collaborating with someone you don’t know, or a collaborative project needs to be delivered quickly? Is there a way of fast-tracking trust?
When working with someone for the first time, one way of minimising the above risks is to have a written agreement, which covers what happens if something goes wrong. Contracts exist to protect those involved, but they can sometimes be a contentious issue. Mairin Murray (@mairinmurray) said to me via twitter: “NDAs [non-disclosure agreements] jinx embryonic collaborations a bit like prenups - so we need alternatives”. Formats such as ‘manifestos’ tend to be morally-binding rather than legally-binding, but rely on the goodwill of others, potentially opening up the risk all over again.
Trust-worthiness
Some of the elements that make someone trustworthy are:
- Clarity of purpose – they state clearly what they want to get out of it
- Consistency – they do what they say they are going to do
- Reputation – they have a track record of delivering
Not only do we need to look for these qualities in others, we also need to make sure we have these ourselves so that we are also attractive potential collaborators.
Assessing the ‘risk’
When entering into a new collaboration, it’s important to keep all the above factors in mind to minimise the risk to your own creative practice. But remember that the risks listed above can also easily be flipped around to make them opportunities!:
1. Reputation – the quality of the outcome may be even better than independently-produced creative work
2. Creative ideas could be developed further or more solutions generated
3. Costs and time can be reduced, and access provided to new resources
4. Being recognised as part of the collaboration can valuable for profile and business development
These ideas were developed during/after the ‘Achtung Baby: Trust – is it a good thing?’ session delivered by Islay Consulting at the Shine Unconference 2009.
As a talented creative practitioner, your individual work and maintaining a strong identity will always be important.Your own creative talents are why people would want to work with you in the first place!So if you are keen on collaborating, this means considering new ways of working. In addition to developing your own work, you might engage in pop-up projects and even create new ventures with others.
One challenge will be in always ensuring that these collaborative projects also align with your own creative work and values – this will be essential in enhancing and leveraging your individual practice, not detracting from it or diluting it.
No need to say the word - we all know what it is…!
Although this may seem like an obvious post to some, it seems like a good time to reiterate that the reasons that creative practitioners collaborate become even more prominent during an economic downturn.
When I studied for my MA, some of the first books I read were The Independents (Leadbeater & Oakley, 1999), The Creative Economy (Howkins, 2001), and The Rise of the Creative Class (Florida, 2002). All outlined the collaborative nature of the creative industries and the reasons for it, and most of the points are still relevant for the current situation:
- Individual’s and businesses’ resources are tighter - if we get together with others, we can share/exchange resources and achieve more with less
- Maintaining an organisation can be expensive (working space, staff, business overheads etc). Resources can be saved by bringing individuals together to form teams on a temporary, ad-hoc basis
- Access to new and larger opportunities that might not be available to or achievable for individual creative practitioners - schemes are popping up that suggest we might need to focus on our ability to collaborate to really engage with them. A couple that spring to mind are:
The empty shop scheme - encouraging the use of vacant retail spaces by groups of artists to showcase their work. Getting together and getting organised will be essential to success.
London 2012 ‘Compete For’ programme – enabling businesses to compete for contracts related to the Olympics. To be able to respond to larger tenders, individuals will need to work with other others to remain competitive.
Furthermore, UK government has identified both the creative industries and digital media as key drivers in addressing the recession. So if we ensure we make the most of social media to connect with suitable collaborators, use our creativity to come up with great ideas and innovate, and develop our collaborative project management skills to put them into action, could this be a way of moving forward?
I’ve just been reading Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth – which outlines the way his design studio approaches projects. There are 43 items, and it’s all well worth a read, but the points that stood out for Bracket were:
#3. Process is more important than outcome. When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we’ve already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.
#16. Collaborate. The space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative potential.
#32. Listen carefully. Every collaborator who enters our orbit brings with him or her a world more strange and complex than any we could ever hope to imagine. By listening to the details and the subtlety of their needs, desires, or ambitions, we fold their world onto our own. Neither party will ever be the same.
My interpretation of these points is that:
- We can learn a lot from the process of engaging in collaborative working. If we know how to do it effectively, we can allow it to take us to new places.
- An end product is an achievement, but it’s definitive – once it’s done, it’s done. The knowledge gained from working with others and from our own experience of being involved can be taken with us long into the next project and beyond.
- Collaboration can allow someone to grow and develop – both in terms of creative potential and in longer term individual capacity.
What are the reasons for sharing/not sharing IP? A recent Disruptive Social Innovators event covered this brilliantly. As already identified in ‘part 1′, a primary reason is financial - the need to make money from one’s ideas. But others might be:
to protect the integrity of a creative idea - preventing someone else from modifying or altering means that it will always stay as you intended
emotional attachment - if you have worked on an idea for so long, investing time and perhaps money, it may be more difficult to part with it
to gain personal recognition - self-promotion as an individual creative practitioner is vital, and being associated with strong ideas and work helps this.
In contrast, there may also be good reasons to share your IP such as:
to spread an idea quickly - sometimes the fastest way to get an idea known is to encourage replication of it
to create awareness of what you do, and even lead people to you paid-for work - if you share your IP, someone may use your work in another context, credit you and find you a whole new audience
to encourage development and innovation - you may have taken an idea as far as it can go and need some fresh insight. Allowing someone else to modify your work can take it further
for the greater good - sometimes an idea has social benefit rather than financial. Opening up your IP could mean that you achieve greater impact where its needed most
and, of course, to collaborate - when you share your IP can often achieve more than you could do alone.
Flickr is an example of a tool that enables content creators to showcase and distribute their work on a global platform. It provides opportunities for, and even encourages distributors to share their IP thorugh the use of Creative Commons licenses. With Creative Commons, practitioners can decide how to distribute and share their work using one of six licenses, based on a set of four conditions:
- attribution (ensuring you are credited)
- share alike (further work must also be released under the same license)
- non-commercial (not allowed to generate an income from your work)
- no derivative works (no modifications allowed to your work)
By choosing a license other than traditional copyright a creator opens up opportunities for their work to be used in various ways, potentially bringing the advantages listed above.
These ways of distributing work happen in the web/tech sector all the time - open source working - and enables individuals to modify and improve existing software. Various versions of software are released into a community, on which anybody that has the necessary skills and knowledge can modify, improve and develop. They then release their version back to the community for others to do the same. What results is a cycle of innovation and improvement, much faster and more accurate than any individual could achieve on their own. It’s a concept from which Wikipedia was born, where a wide range of individuals constantly update topics with their knowledge and latest information. What results is, in theory (and generally), the most up-to-date article at any time.
However, the examples described above apply to content where incremental changes are made - where each individual builds on an available previous version. Someone creates, releases it under Creative Commons or similar and another can develop it from there - pretty straightforward. But what about when creative practitioners are generating ideas with other individuals? When everyone is in the same room or online workspace freely exchanging ideas. When the final outcome is the result of several individuals’ work and suggestions. How do you get rewarded and/or recognised for your efforts when your input is melded with that of others and not immediately clear? How can you feel comfortable in sharing your IP then?! We’ll look into this in ‘Part 3′.
