I have been blessed these past few months to have been in steady conversation with Adam Pattantyus of Merrimack Management Associates. Adam’s background is a fascinating blend of military, industrial engineering, management, and clean technology professional experiences. He is deeply thoughtful and committed to helping bring about the transition to more sustainable ways of being. And he is the co-purveyor of a promising product and service in the form of an on-line operational infrastructure for collaborative action. I learn so much from each of our interactions, and our meeting last week left me thinking about how to make much needed collaboration both easier and more ambitious for those interested in realizing deep social change.
“Collaboration drives creativity because innovation emerges from a series of sparks – not a single flash of insight.”
- Keith Sawyer, Group Genius
Having last week blogged about when we might want to de-emphasize innovation and think about the small steps we can take towards change, today I embrace the “i word.” In doing so, I tip my hat to Keith Sawyer and to my Interaction colleague Andy Atkins for helping to clarify my thinking around the connection between collaboration and innovation for social change. Both are obviously quite popular concepts at the moment, and there is some discussion about how well they go together. For example, one of my colleagues had a conversation with a corporate leader last week during which this leader shared his deep belief that collaboration inhibits creativity and that flashes of insight occur in the individual’s mind. While the last part of that statement may be true, what leads to that flash and where one goes with it would seem to have everything 
to do with interaction with others.
In a recent post, Janice Molloy of the Pegasus Blog had an insightful way to illustrate the “Power of Conversation,” Janice says:
Where are new ideas born? While some develop through formal processes and innovation think tanks, throughout history, many of the most transformative notions have arisen from informal conversations over a glass of wine or cup of coffee in a café, living room, or neighborhood pub. In this way, sewing circles and “committees of correspondence” played a role in the birth of the American Republic, and debates that took place in cafés and salons helped spawn the French Revolution. Read the rest of this entry »
(In the spirit of April Fool’s)
A town is hit by a fire that catches in the church district one evening. As the fire spreads, so does word among the members of the neighboring congregations. Before long, people have assembled in front of their respective houses of worship and are deciding what to rescue from inside. A roving reporter goes from group to group to see how they’re responding. She notes that the Catholics have already salvaged the communion cup. Moving to the Episcopal Church, she witnesses a man emerging from smoke to cheers as he hoists the Book of Common Prayer. The reporter heads next to the Unitarians, and as she approaches cannot see a particular object among the group assembled in the street. Observing the expressions on peoples’ faces, she becomes alarmed that someone may still be inside the church, which is on the verge of collapsing. As she gets closer she hears the group in heated debate about who should be on the ad hoc committee to make the final decision about what to rescue . . .
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