The collaborator's view point

In a cooperative situation, all cooperators will be made aware of the main goal and be given details of the plan to reach this goal. But, in a collaborative situation, where collaboration is preferred because of the unknowns and uncertainties involved, this cannot happen. The principle initiators will not know any certain way to reach the goal, they will have to be directed by customer or client feedback during the process of reaching the goal. How does a collaborator respond to such an uncertain leadership?

This situation would seem to be totally ambiguous. A leader who doesn't know what direction to take? To appreciate the position of a collaborator, it may be useful here to use another metaphor. Metaphors are very useful when dealing with novel or unfamiliar situations - they allow you to create abstractions that cut out irrelevant detail to be able focus on the critical elements of a problem.

In a gold rush scenario, there might be a mountain full of gold but nobody knows where the gold is. Many miners might converge on this mountain seeking their fortune, but, none of them can be certain of success. They will need tools and supplies. Fairly soon the miners are joined by suppliers who have no interest in taking a risk by spending their time looking for the gold themselves. They will be able to get more reliable money by supplying the miners with what they need. These suppliers then become collaborators in the miner's attempts to make a fortune but they are not involved in the same way as cooperators might be (i.e., as a miner's partner or employee).

When some of the miners make a strike, their needs will increase in order to develop and expand their operations. These new needs will attract new suppliers. The lucky miners will have money to spend on entertainment and pleasures. They'll need banks and other kinds of services. They'll need to employ labour, which will attract new people into the area. In no time at all, a boom town comes into existence - and in this boom town it will be the suppliers and providers that will be making more money than most of the miners.

Mapping the essence of this scenario - the abstraction - back to the film making business, doesn't Hollywood consist of more than just the people involved in the film making? Isn't everyone there just as much a collaborator in the making of movies as any of those involved on the shooting sets?

Seeing movies as just events that occur within a complex community, can provide a totally different perspective on the roles of the various kinds of collaborators. Then, the question to ask yourself is, "Do I want to be a speculative prime mover or one of the specialist collaborators?" Now map this across to an e-business environment. What kind of role do you want to play? Do you want to be one of the entrepreneurial speculators, or , one of the collaborators who makes a living from the money of the speculators? This is a critical decision when contemplating a possible niche in the world of e-commerce.