Examples of Creative Collaboration
Creative collaboration is the best path toward innovation. We are all smarter, more creative, and more resourceful than any of one of us. We must evolve from our individualistic culture into more of a collective culture where we can work together more creatively and more effectively. Here are some examples of creative collaboration:
Ideo. The “deep dive” process of the design company Ideo is a good example of creative collaboration. Their diverse group of product designers works with problems or opportunities through a series of steps similar to the ones spelled out in the “Fast Prototyping” section of this book. Their playful office space is filled with materials and mechanisms which might be used on the next great inven tion. In the ABC Nightline video “The Deep Dive,” their designers are shown diverging and converging on a variety of ideas for the redesign of the shopping cart. The participants are having fun and new ideas for a shopping cart are being developed and explored.
General Electric. General Electric is famous for its leadership development center in Crotonville, New York. Management has these “workouts” where managers spar together and take each other on over policies and procedures. [With boxing gloves? If so, let’s say it—it’s a good image.] Creative abrasion is encouraged as no holds are barred. Many of these sessions turn into creative think tanks.
Edison’s Menlo Park. One of the first great invention think tanks in American history was Thomas Edison’s at Menlo Park. At any given time, he had five to fifteen engineers working there, side by side. At close proximity, they could interact and build on each other’s ideas. This think tank was responsible for over 400 patents, including the telegraph and telephone.
Original Disney Studios. Walt Disney and his brother amassed hundreds of creative minds in the early days of the Disney Company. Many of these creatives worked side by side on cinematographic innovations. At the height of the early days at the studio, 750 people created Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, at that time the most innovative movie ever made. Some referred to that project as “a dream with a deadline.”