Of Collaborations & Co-Conspirators

Design and productivity blogger David Seah thinks frighteningly like me at times. He’s often so on the mark for my twisted little brain that I’m too astounded to leave comments for him (sorry about that, David!) Recently, he’s chimed in on the struggles with Social Media with “Community Building for Introverts” , a far more positive take approach than my own recent declaration than my I Suck at Social Media.

But it’s an older post of his that’s been on my mind lately. Scheming vs Collaborating lays out two starkly different approaches to team projects. One approach is all about contributing your little bit to a project, the other is about buying into the whole project as co-conspirators scheming against the world. It nailed a core issue for me right off the bat, and I’ve been pondering it ever since. Here’s why:

I Adore Big Ideas & Projects (but executing them alone)

I have a lot of fun conceiving and developing all the diverse elements big ideas require. The complex, multi-faceted creativity required is energizing, impassioning, and exciting - but only if I’m able to share that passion with someone. Without the shared passion, it all feels… well… a bit like masturbation. Sterile and somewhat pointless. I’m apparently not capable of parthenogenesis, and most of these projects are just too big for one person (especially if the one person is yours truly).

Enter Collaboration. Collaborators are great. They bring their individual contributions, do their part, and pretty much stay out of the way, otherwise. Collaborators are often supportive of the project as a whole, maybe even really encouraging, but they are rarely not much involved or interested past their own direct contribution. It’s a great way to put together a project that involves a lot of diverse skills, but still project collaborators are more like sperm donors than invested parental partners. They just don’t have an ongoing responsibility or emotional stake in the project.

I crave more.

I crave people who don’t just do their small part, or encourage support my efforts. I want partners who are excited about my ideas & their own, people who want to be involved, are willing to invest their energy, able to become a part of the project at the core. They see the big vision. They want to help bring it into reality, conspiring with me in a protected, passionate environment, as scheming co-conspirators, developing our projects and trying to take over the world. (Narf!)

It’s About The Relationship (and the scheming)

It isn’t the development of my ideas (as brilliant as I think I am ) that gets me so turned on by creative co-conspiring. It’s the energy, the interaction, the us-against-the-world mentality that gets me wound up, not the personal ego boost. The co-conspirator relationship is what feeds and drives my best creative works.

Since I’m about the relationships themselves, I’ve never been that concerned about whose ideas I developed. I’ve often unknowingly experimented as a co-conspirator on other people’s projects. Their passion and vision would draw me in, and together we’d plot and plan and start the hard work of production. But then we’d hit a bump in the road, the other partners would lose interest, and the whole thing would fall apart.

After giving them time and nudges to see if they’d recover, I’d wind up sadly leaving the project (and my time/energy investment) behind. There were other troubled experiences too - project partners who had the passion and commitment, but not enough self discipline, or a personality that was more suited to dictator than co-conspirator.

After so many bad experiences, I started developing my own projects, instead of adopting other people’s ideas. Oh, I still do a bit of collaboration on other people’s projects, sort of testing to see if they could make a good co-conspirator. But it’s never worked out - a few people I’ve worked with would be good in the role, but we’re not interested enough in one another’s projects to make it a good match.

I Did Learn From My Mistakes (and so can you)

A few tips from Path-Of-Failed-Conspiracies:

• Don’t partner with the idea, partner with the *person*
• Initial passion alone isn’t enough to sustain people through the rough spots; good co-conspirators need a stubborn, committed streak
• They also need a certain amount of craziness(but a *useful* crazy - not tinfoil-lining-the-windows crazy)
• Passion and creativity doesn’t compensate for a drinking problem, mental illness, or a lack of concrete skills
• Date a potential co-conspirator before purchasing the equivalent of an engagement ring -but don’t forget about free-milk-and-a-cow, either
• If someone isn’t the the co-conspirator type, they won’t get it. They will never understand what you’re looking for from them; they’ll just keep asking how they can help. Put them on the collaborator’s list, by all means, but don’t expect them to play Pinky And The Brain with you.
• Know when to call it quits. If your co-conspirator has lost interest, or worse, shows signs of conspiring *against* you, cut your losses. Somethings, stubborn-stick-to-it-ness just can’t resolve.

So how does one *find* a co-conspirator?

I’ve no clue. Really. I’m clearly not doing it right. Maybe we need a co-conspirator’s hookup service? Oh, wait, we’d need co-conspirators to start that up, too. Sigh!

Seriously, if this strikes any sort of chord within you, please leave a conspiratorial comment. I’d like to get a feel for how many people do or don’t crave this sort of partnership environment, how they fill it, or how & why they struggle or succeed with it. (And if you’ve no clue what the heck I’m rambling about, let me know that, too , please! )

MindTweak: “What are we doing tomorrow night, Brain?”
“Same thing we do every night, Pinky,
try to take over the world!”