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 Bracket picked up Great Place to Work’s® supplement on the UK’s Best Workplaces. Flicking through, we 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!