How collaboration emerges

Time for another paradigm shift. As a collaborator - as opposed to a cooperator who is aligned with a common goal - you don't have to make an exclusive choice. You can have your fingers in more than one pie. Just as a store owner in a gold rush boom town can take a day off now and again to to search the hills for gold, so a specialist can dabble with a personal e-commerce project of their own. Just as a gold miner can go broke and spend some time working for others to build up enough capital for another start, so a specialist can spend time collaborating in projects to build up capital for their own venture. In the environment of e-business it is possible to combine all of these alternatives rather than to be locked into a single one.

This is a common occurrence in e-business start-ups where collaborators might be offered equity in a project in lieu of payment for services. Media might take equity in lieu of payment for advertising. Many e-businesses are based upon creating strategic alliances, partnerships or affiliations. This allows niche specialists to have a number of options whereby they can earn conventional fees, build up a portfolio of shares in other ventures and even experiment with their own start ups on the side.

Note: this is something different from employee equity schemes where payment for full time employment is supplemented with equity. This is usually on the basis of a cooperative association rather than one of collaboration. In such cases the equity beneficiary does not have the (official) option of participating in multiple ventures.

In the film industry, the switching of roles is common. There are plenty of examples of producers taking on the role of director and effectively becoming the auteur instead of the funding specialist - and vice versa. Actors and actresses often becoming directors or producers, as do cinematographers, production managers and script writers.

Billy Wilder, who produced, directed and wrote his own movies, started off in the business as a script writer at a time when script writers weren't even allowed on the set while a movie was being made. When asked one time how he got into directing, he explained that it had happened over his insistence that he had some control over the way his scripts were being interpreted. To placate him, the studio gave him a small film to direct, thinking that this would be such a trying experience he'd happily return to script writing and leave directing to a professional director. Happily for the film industry, Wilder had the flair and the aptitude for being an auteur - as was evidenced by his successful career as a combined script writer, director and producer.

Wilder, in an interview with Bernard Dick, once explained how the advent of television made it so much easier for niche specialists to transfer to directing. He explained how they could be involved as a specialist in many small productions and learn about the functions of other specialist collaborators on the set. This allowed them to get to know and form associations with a full complement of other specialists, sufficient to bring together a production of their own.

This then, is the mind set needed to see how collaboration can emerge from a group of specialists. They are not brought together to decide how to make a production. One, or a small group of them, can take the initiative to bring others in to collaborate on a particular film project.