{"id":1352,"date":"2009-10-07T08:23:52","date_gmt":"2009-10-07T15:23:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2009\/10\/collaboration_is_a_muscle\/"},"modified":"2009-10-07T08:23:52","modified_gmt":"2009-10-07T15:23:52","slug":"collaboration_is_a_muscle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/collaboration_is_a_muscle.php","title":{"rendered":"Collaboration is a muscle"},"content":{"rendered":"

I often participate in working groups or task teams of arts and cultural organizations — collections of managers gathering to address a collective problem, or consider a collaborative solution. And I’m often frustrated that more than half of the conversation is inevitably spent framing the problem in narrow terms, with the rest of the time conceiving a solution to that narrow frame. The problem, it strikes me, is generally bigger than the tactical issues being discussed. And any solution must begin with a broad view and a new frame.<\/p>\n

Said Albert Einstein: ”You cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it. You must learn to see the world anew.”<\/p>\n

But, my recent working group experience, with Project Audience<\/a> this week in Chicago, is slowly teaching me to get over myself.<\/p>\n

The gathering, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, convened to consider the development of new software tools to build connection and community around the arts. Representatives from many city or regional on-line arts portals, arts listings, audience initiatives, and the like are becoming frustrated with the tools they are using, and losing faith that commercial vendors will fill the gaps in mission-focused ways. So, they’re wondering if they should build their own.<\/p>\n

As I was beginning to feel my familiar frustration, however, we heard from Chris Mackie, a Mellon Foundation specialist on community-source software development (primarily outside the arts). And his point was this: Collaboration is a muscle. <\/p>\n

In his extensive experience with communities of practice building software together, he said, that muscle took time to build bulk and dexterity. Early efforts were invariably designed to solve immediate problems, often narrowly defined. But the process of resolving those problems together made the group smarter, more sophisticated, and more prepared to grow into the challenge of a larger frame.<\/p>\n

Along the way, early wins and direct returns on investment led to more elegant and innovative solutions. And those innovations led the group to think and work differently. And on and on. In some cases, it would take years of collective work until the group would find its way into the problem it was originally trying to solve. But they wouldn’t and couldn’t have recognized the problem or its solution back then. They needed collaborative muscle, which could only have been built together.<\/p>\n

Which is why I’m rethinking my own frustrations with the pace and frame of problem-solving among cultural managers. And why I’m now considering ways, instead, to help them build things together. I’m certainly not giving up on the long view or the big frame. But I’m realizing that even the best perspective will require some considerable collaborative heft to get us there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I often participate in working groups or task teams of arts and cultural organizations — collections of managers gathering to address a collective problem, or consider a collaborative solution. And I’m often frustrated that more than half of the conversation is inevitably spent framing the problem in narrow terms, with the rest of the time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1352","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}