Collaboration is easy with music

This live sample of the reactable in Berlin highlights for me how easy it is to collaborate with music. Stage actors, especially those in improv, do it with ideas, words and action. Writers do it well with something like wikipedia. The outcome is understood, but the collaboration effort to get there is missing (yes, you can look into the history pages). Online we are trying to make it a good experience at the Joyful Jubilant Learning blog. Are there other places to view collaboration in action?

Rewards of collaboration

Innovation does not always occur with a single idea. In many cases, the idea was actually spawned from observation or reflection on another idea. Collaboration is more likely to lead to a better idea. This concept is confirmed by two artists working together on Art for a Garden. Pat Keck and Sally Moore scamper up and down Julie Levesque's steeply tiered backyard garden like schoolgirls. They fetch Keck's spooky doll-like sculptures and place them amid Moore's plywood sculptures, which resemble houses of cards in mid-tumble. With every placement, they erupt in chortles of delight, then put their heads together, consulting on how to make it better. The two artists just met last month, when Levesque, a sculptor herself and the impresario of Art for the Garden, an annual event timed to coincide with Newton Open Studios, came up with the idea of asking this year's artists to collaborate. Levesque invited Moore, and Moore got in touch with Keck. In some ways, they're a natural fit. Both work in a theatrical vein: Moore makes the sets, and Keck crafts the characters. Ah yes, the power of we!

CoWorking

While I been busy recently on the Franklin Override issue, I was delighted to find a new opportunity getting underway. Bernie DeKoven, the Funsmith, and a regular stop on my RSS reading list is CoWorking with Garrit Visser. This is related to what the blog Synergy attempted and what the Joyful Jubilant Learning blog is working towards, and since I am a "collaboration teammate", my efforts in this area need to commence today. Check out what they are up to! One thing is for sure, CoWorking is sure be some fun!

YouTube - You caught!

YouTube has uses beyond what it was intended for. I think there will be more coming. What am I talking about? Did you hear about the criminals caught because the video captured during one of the escapades was posted to YouTube? A policeman from another Massachusetts community identified the video culprits. Johnson put the footage on the Franklin Police Web site. Then the officer, a user of both YouTube and the social networking site MySpace, decided to put technology to the test. "It seemed logical to me," said Johnson, who runs the department's computer network in his spare time. "A lot more people visit YouTube than the Franklin Police site." Johnson also sent an alert to the media. Pretty soon, he said, police departments up and down Interstate 495 reported that the case sounded similar to ones they were investigating. A Cohasset Police officer saw a TV news piece on Franklin's use of YouTube, watched the video and got in touch with Johnson, identifying the suspects as the Terrios. "They're career criminals," Johnson said of the pair. "This is what they do." The duo remained at-large until Tuesday, when Middleborough Police responded to a disturbance call at a Holiday Inn and arrested the pair. They had stolen credit cards in their possession, Johnson said. It is unclear when their Franklin case could come to court. In the end, it was old-fashioned police work that solved the case, not technology. However, Johnson said the YouTube post helped police gather information on the case and connect the dots. Moving forward, the officer said YouTube represented a model for free and easy communication among departments, something that does not always occur. Gotta love new technology! Read the full Milford Daily News article here. YouTube Franklin

Twelve Days of Christmas, the Joyful Jubilant Learning way

If you feeling like trying out your vocal cords today, you can check out some new lyrics to an old time classic: The Twelve Days of Christmas, the Joyful Jubilant Learning way! Enjoy!

The Game Makers

Sandra has a good posting on her blog about Building the Game Making Community. How do we play this “making the game” together game? is the central question she asks. Sandra, you have provided the tools (blog and wiki) and plenty of inspiration, now I think we need an objective. What game are we going to make? What are we going to try to accomplish with the game? Maybe the group will come up with multiple games to make. We can list them, prioritize them and get started with one. I think we should start simple. We'll learn as much together the first time through about ourselves as about the process itself. The second time, trying something a little more challenging in the game itself, will actually be easier because we'll be more able to work together. I'll put my thinking cap on to come up with a suggestion or two.