Collaboration Chronicles

This last weekend was another episode of Stirfry Startups.  I believe it was episode 3.  I showed up late on Saturday and Sunday but was still able to get a lot of work done.

Stirfry Startups has had a specific focus at each weekend it was hosted.  This weekend it was design.  We each took turns sitting in the “hot seat” while everyone else lambasted our website design.  In my case, I presented this site and Collab21.com, which I’m working on merging.  I finally have a plan, now I just need to execute on it.

But to get to that plan was a lot of falling on my face.  “Change the sub-heading text”, “use reflexive verbs”, “the colors on CollaborationChronicles.com suck ass, fix them”.   The best advice was from Sean.  He asked me a few questions and then said “You need to put what you just told me in writing.  I have no idea what your company is about by looking at your site for 6 seconds.  You need to explain it so that people who may be interested will stay for more than 6 seconds.”  This was paraphrased, but you get the idea.

Well, I hadn’t given it that much thought.  Now I have, and that’s important.

Since I wasn’t the only person who sat in the hot seat, Sean came up with a term to describe this process.  It’s called “group strapping”.  He ruminated on the idea overnight, and on Sunday described it to us this way: “normally you pull yourself up by the bootstraps when you start a company.  ‘Group strapping’ is everyone pulling up each other’s bootstraps.”

Once we get good at this and can prove it, we’ll be in a position to offer it as a service to other groups.

I met with some friends on the tail end of their once a month three day long Stirfry Startups and gleened a couple things from following and following through with collaboration here.

1. Send invitations.  People you think have similar goals as you (e.g. Build a successful business, raise bees, etc).
2. When working together, you have to have a plan.  This weekend was planned.  There was time to cook, time to review/reflect, time to work.   Things to review and work on were already described before anyone showed up.
3. Provide food, plugs for computers, music, drinks and open communication.  These are all important things that you find in any successful office, too.
4. Mutual benefit of people involved.  The ultimate goal of collaboration, like most activities, is for personal advancement.  By helping other people, you’re helping yourself.  You’re learning, growing, making connections, building relationships and generating potential traffic for collaborators.

The Goal of our Workshop Wednesday is to provide this same environment for people in our community.  There are three artists and three programmers in Collab21, but everyone is a mix of both.  There are gardeners, movie buffs, music maniacs, minimalists and people into Dungeons and Dragons.  The one thing we know we have in common is that we’re working to build a business.  The cool thing is, everyone is invited.