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?