Collaboration

How to pass, fit in, eventually set an example, and ultimately lead the way.
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Ego
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Joined: Wed Nov 23, 2011 12:42 am

Collaboration

Post by Ego »

Good OpEd about the collaboration of Kahneman and Tversky.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/25/opini ... atter.html

Kahneman and Tversky began to work together. They would lock themselves together and talk and laugh, year after year. If they were at a party, they would go off and talk to each other. “When they sat down to write, they nearly merged, physically, into a single form,” Lewis writes, hunched over a single typewriter.

“Their relationship was more intense than a marriage,” Tversky’s wife recalled. When they wrote a paper together they lost all track of who had contributed what. They scrambled for research topics that gave them an excuse to be together, and completed each other’s sentences.

“The way the creative process works is that you first say something and later, sometimes years later, you understand what you said,” Kahneman recalled. “And in our case it was foreshortened. I would say something and Amos understood it. It still gives me goose bumps.”



Has anyone experienced this type of collaboration? If so, how did it come about? Did you do anything to make it happen? Did the collaboration produce more than you could have produced individually? Was there an inflection point?

Farm_or
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Joined: Thu Nov 10, 2016 8:57 am
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Re: Collaboration

Post by Farm_or »

Like two theifs who meet at night?

I have had instance of meeting a stranger and immediately feeling connection like we've been long time collaborators. It's been very rare for me, but I have witnessed the phenomen a few times observing others.

Not really the same thing?

In my wages life, there's been instances where I have merged with coworkers on a common goal. A perfect team effort where guys working together exceed the sum of the participants. It's like participating in a perfect pace line. The lead man peels off before he tires and the next in line pulls, keeping the same pace. Not as rare to get two collaborators as it is to get more than two.

Chad
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Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2010 3:10 pm

Re: Collaboration

Post by Chad »

I have never experienced this in a normal job. Everyone is just too guarded. It seems like it would be more common in jobs/work that is more independent or requires emotion.

Writers, like Kahneman and Tversky, don't generally have someone monitoring their day to day activity. They can structure their work however it best suits them and the only person questioning their day to day decisions is the other person.

Emotion could be another avenue for this type of collaboration. While, I haven't experienced this fully in any job I did come close when I was coaching. In this case, you have a large group of people pulling for the same goal and attaining that goal generally requires more emotion than getting a promotion to management.

Also, in the coaching case, you get immediate and direct feedback at all levels, even the head coach. This makes it easier to get close with another person, as you know exactly where you stand.

Toska2
Posts: 420
Joined: Fri Nov 20, 2015 8:51 pm

Re: Collaboration

Post by Toska2 »

Almost. I never met them again so I will never know if the feeling was mutual.

It was a four hour conversation of only questions. The direction of the questions said more about us than any answer could.

Oh. To answer more questions about it.

Being curious.
I tried to recreate it. I failed in the sense that I tried with people I knew and wanted to "solve" a superficial question instead of digging deeper. (My analogy is planting flower bulbs instead of a drainage ditch)

Inflection point? Nope. That's why this example is stamped in my memory, it's sudden appearance. It happened when I was a young teen 20 years ago yet the feeling fossilized.

Riggerjack
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Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: Collaboration

Post by Riggerjack »

It was a four hour conversation of only questions. The direction of the questions said more about us than any answer could.
As in

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y-Sx4W2cKlU

Lasting 4 hours? Just how high were you?

Toska2
Posts: 420
Joined: Fri Nov 20, 2015 8:51 pm

Re: Collaboration

Post by Toska2 »

Four hours. I was too young to enjoy the wedding too old to bring toys.

vezkor
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Joined: Tue Mar 22, 2016 9:51 am

Re: Collaboration

Post by vezkor »

Ego wrote:Has anyone experienced this type of collaboration? If so, how did it come about? Did you do anything to make it happen? Did the collaboration produce more than you could have produced individually? Was there an inflection point?
Yes, my friend Dave and I. It was pure serendipity: we were placed on the same soccer team at around the age of 10 and became quick friends and rivals. At the age of 18 our friendly rivalry shifted towards more of a pure friendship + collaboration and we only realized how well we WORKED together when we managed to get placed in the same advanced placement psychology class. We didn't do anything consciously to make it happen, to either of our knowledge. Together, we are frighteningly more productive (in terms of ideas, learning, understanding and challenging assumptions) than apart. He lives 7 states away but I'll still call if I'm ever up against a tough problem... even if he only acts as a sounding board it helps me reason through. Very often, though, we have incredibly valuable input for each-other. MOST TIMES our input is acted upon directly by the other (! I still struggle to fully appreciate this, knowing it's incredibly rare in ANYONE), especially when dealing with personal matters. I generally trust him to have a better view of MY situations than I have of them, and vice versa.

Inflection point was senior year of highscool.

sfchristo
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Joined: Fri Nov 18, 2016 11:02 am
Location: SF Bay Area, USA

Re: Collaboration

Post by sfchristo »

Yes!
About two years ago I met a fellow painter and she and I had so much in common aesthetically that we started collaborating on oil paintings. I usually paint in private but we started off painting side by side. We would critique each others' work and were amazed at how we both felt the same spots were weak or strong/needed more work etc.
After realizing how closely aligned we were (and I'm sure that even that is truly rare), we started painting the same painting. Sometimes we'd trade off a painting after a layer had dried and other times we'd work on the same painting at the same time.

This mutual work lasted for about a year and was amazing to me. I think she and I were in just the right head space and had just the right level of worthwhile critique, ideals of beauty, and cooperation. We pushed each other to try different things - challenged each other. It was a year of growth and productivity. I'll see if I can get one or two up on imgur so I can put up an example here.

I doubt I'll find that high a level of simpatico collaboration ever again. A couple high school band mates and I had come close though when writing music together.

sfchristo
Posts: 15
Joined: Fri Nov 18, 2016 11:02 am
Location: SF Bay Area, USA

Re: Collaboration

Post by sfchristo »

@ego - could you please explain what you are asking about inflection point? I googled it but I'm still not sure.

Here's three of our collaborative paintings.

Image

Image

Image

sfchristo
Posts: 15
Joined: Fri Nov 18, 2016 11:02 am
Location: SF Bay Area, USA

Re: Collaboration

Post by sfchristo »

On a side note but very related to ERE ideas: my collaborator is very frugal. We never just threw away paint, the day's working paint was always used to start the first layer of yet another new painting. She was super careful about resource uses, was a master at making her own clothes, canned her fruits and on and on. I used to think she was really extreme but it looks like after a year or so the ideas have slowly started to sink in.

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