What is it?

From Bravenewcollaboration

'Brave New Collaboration' was a 1 month research project in summer 2008, by Ed Murfitt and Menka Parekh

It’s now possible for more people to collaborate towards common goals, and benefit from common knowledge, than ever before. The pioneers have proven that using the internet we can work together, in unprecedented numbers and distributed globally. In August 2008 our question was whether we can harness the apparent potential of this ‘brave new collaboration’ to address the pressing social and environmental challenges we now face. As designers and innovators of products,services, systems and experiences can we engage with collaboration processes to tackle the toughest brief yet? 

We realised that this is an emerging, rapidly evolving, and relatively undocumented domain. The knowledge and wisdom is in the minds and hands of those pushing the boundaries. So we decided to interview around 50 people we admire for bringing together web-scale collaborations that shift us in the right direction. We contacted a cross-section of academics, authors, entrepreneurs, designers, and strategists. Equipped with our laptops, mic, tripod and a video camera we were soon heading from London to New York, Boston, San Francisco and Cortes Island, BC.

We were after insights about the inner workings of collaborative projects, so we asked our interviewees about their biggest frustrations, hardest-won learnings, and their vision for what might be possible in the future.

Here are some of their responses:

Towards the end of the trip we were very fortunate to attend Open Everything, an annual (un-)conference in the heart of British Columbia. The goal of the annual 3-day event is to ‘gather the brightest minds that think about and play with open’ including the coders, the educators, the activists and more. We met with diversity, ranging from a consultant specialising in negotiation and conflict management, through to corporate leaders from Google and Intel. Together we explored the nature, benefits and hurdles of what they described as ‘open projects’. Given the significant role of ‘openness’ in collaboration, it was brilliant to be there.