Work In Colour - Work. Think. Live. In Colour
Tuesday 12th April 2011 | 6 comments
Last year, my son had an idea for a camping trip. His vision was clear: a week of adventure, deep in the bush, no adults. (Think Bear Grylls meets Tomorrow, When the War Began and you'll have the look.)
As he and his mates are 15, and haven't done unsupervised camping before, the parents did insist that a couple of the Dads came along. With promises that they wouldn't interfere with the fun, all was sorted.
Only it wasn't really sorted at all.
Plans were changed, mates lost interest, new kids joined in, some Dads couldn't come at the last minute, the original site was not available, it was too hot / wet / crowded. (I also vetoed the plan for a huge serrated knife, a là Bear Grylls, but that is a different story - one that is, sadly, ongoing...)
Time passed. More time passed.
Finally, it was all set for this Easter holidays. A few more twists and compromises, but agreement on a good, off-road site, a sense of being able to leave civilisation behind. Boys v. bush, bring it on! Then, more last minute changes - this time resulting in the boys going to a big public campsite with lots of other people, canoeing and quad bikes, public shower blocks and tents all in a row. A long way from my son's original vision. It has caused him some angst, and a deal of distress.
I am looking forward to seeing how it all panned out when they return later this week. But it led me to think about the bigger context - the thorny issue of creative control. How does it feel when you have the initial idea, then see it morph into something else, over which you have no real say? When you dream up a project, be it at work or play, how is it when it's taken over by others?
I recently had an interesting twist on this. I invited a friend to participate in a creative project of mine, without making the parameters as clear as I should have. I had a clear sense of the outer limits and shape of the playground, though I was eager to collaborate on the actual stuff inside the borders. I didn't explain this well enough, so she thought everything was up for grabs. Because we are grownups, and friends, it was all sorted pretty quickly, but I realised that sometimes it's great to create something from scratch with others, and sometimes not.
Sometimes you do have a clear vision, and it's important for the integrity of the project that you honour that. Sometimes you have the seed of an idea and are delighted for it to take shape in a group brainstorm. And sometimes, as with my son, you see it slipping away from you and are powerless to stop it.
Where do you stand on creative control? What are your stories?
Tag: creativity
HI Joanna,
Interesting to read your comments about your son's camping trip. My kids have all been through scouting and so have done a lot of hikes and weekend camps in the bush. The first without adult supervision was when they were thirteen or fourteen. A lot of planning was involved and adults were critical here. But ultimately, it was a group of five or six scouts out there traipsing through the bush, camping somewhere out there (Before The War Began) and heading to a pick up point the next day. There were quite a few of these hikes and certainly times when things went wrong. But their training and planning were essential and really put to good use.
I guess with all things, the creative control is there in the training and the planning.
Interestingly, I always thought they looked taller after one of these trips.
Love your newsletters,
Cheers
Susan Schrader
Susan, thank you for the comments. Indeed, training and planning is critical, isn't it?
I think you have made a very perceptive comment in relation to collaboration, Joanna. In my experience, it's easy to lose the poetry of a good idea to the group impulse to pin everything down too early in the most instrumental of ways. I guess different temperaments come into this too. Or, the differences between the right and left hemispheres. The poor right hemisphere can suffer because it lacks the language to fight for its position.
Annie, love the bit about the right side lacking the language to fight, great stuff! And I followed you back to your blog, found this which I also loved - so thanks again:
http://www.projectsisu.com/2010/05/collaboration-and-its-shadow/
When I talk to people to get help for a new initiative, the one thing that they all agree on is that often an idea does not see the light because no one is willing to initiate it. Better that the camping trip took place in a somewhat modified form than not take place at all. Our ability to collaborate is sometimes retated to our experience. The next trip will be better and the one after that, better again - just keep doing it.
Funny Paul, that's exactly what I told my son! And I agree, collaboration is often iterative and based on compromise, as is most of life when you think about it :)