Fast Forward – Week 4: Collaboration

Words by James Stevens, Strategy Director at WCRS and Fast Forward mentor

Collaboration.

It’s a word that brings many  industry folk out in a cold sweat.

Because great ideas are the preserve of great thinking from individuals. They’re not born in workshops with post-its, biscuits and bad coffee.

Or are they?

Tonight we welcomed Alan Weetch and Matthew Mint from Mindshare and Paulo Salomao of Wieden & Kennedy into the hallowed halls of BBH to talk to this year’s #NABSFF participants about how great collaboration may actually hold the key to great ideas. The guys were fantastic and passionately came from the Steven Johnson school of thinking about Where Good Ideas Come From: not private eureka moments, but conversations, sharing and people working together.

There were many great tips on how to make collaboration work, but two stood out.

First, be a pleasure to work with. Be nice. Be modest. Be enjoyable. And be generous. It’s bizarre that when we know so much about human behaviour, advice like this still seems so powerful. But no one likes to work with an arsehole, so if you behave like one, you’ll likely end up with not that many great ideas to your name. And a small Christmas card list.

And second, embrace sharing. Ideas come from anywhere and everywhere. Fresh perspectives can be a marvellous thing when they’re welcomed.

With 3 weeks until the pitch, there’s plenty of collaborating still to do for the teams. The words of wisdom couldn’t have been delivered at a more perfect time.