I’ve been thinking a lot about collaboration recently; about how modern technology allows us to work together remotely to create together or work together to achieve goals we couldn’t have dreamed of accomplishing collectively a few years ago.
A friend of mine from high school who I haven’t seen since (but who I remember fondly enough to have become friends with online), posted this video on his Facebook wall a few weeks ago. I was enticed to watch it and you should now watch, too, if you haven’t seen it already. A music producer has traveled the globe and created ad hoc bands made up of street musicians from all over the world playing their part of each song which is then mixed in with the others. The project is called “Playing For Change” and more than anything else, I think it reflects the world we live in, where it is possible, with the right orchestration (in this case, both literally and in a technological sense), to create great things.
Speaking of great things, there is the story the Kenya Spare a Camera. The organization was created by Norm Golightly, a film producer and executive I sat next to years ago at a luncheon for a Southern California mentoring organization we were both volunteering for. We have many in-person friends and Facebook friends in common, one of whom commented on something Norm posted a while back which I was, again, enticed by and checked out. It might’ve been a blog post, it might’ve been a photo, but it hinted that he had taken the in-person mentoring experience we’d both had to a new level.
Sure enough, Norm has “adopted” an orphanage in Kenya, and is using social media to spread the word about these wonderful kids and get people to donate still and video cameras so the kids can document their personal stories (or anything else they want to document). He has also gotten them sponsorship (currently “sold out,” as of the writing of this post, but check anyway), again using the power of social media and awesome videos like this one of his recent arrival at the orphanage and this one of a flash mob dance he allegedly choreographed for them. Talk about collaboration. He has taken his creativity and passion and heart and given everyone he can reach the opportunity to make a difference and be touched by these kids they will most likely never meet.
Another example of collaboration for altruistic purposes is my favorite animal rescue, The Rescue Train, which was co-founded by two entertainment professionals, Delilah Loud (top of page) and Lisa Deane Young (at left), and is now, like so many other rescues, using the power of social media and email outreach to find homes for pets that would likely have died on the streets or been euthanized at local shelters before this technology came along to streamline communication about these dogs and cats. Social media and technology are by no means solving the problem, but they are connecting so many loving animals with people who need them and vice versa. Here is a link to their success stories page. This is a drop in the bucket of all the matches they have made.
For my own personal technology/social media-enabled collaboration, there are the people I’ve never met who find me on LinkedIn (or hear about me online or in the “real world”) and check out my websites (here, and www.momentumadvantage.com, and www.yourindustryinsider.com) to get career guidance and sometimes subsequently reach out to me for one-on-one career help. Together, we work on creating a next best move for them (up, lateral, to something else in the same field, or a complete reboot) and/or we create resumes and cover letters to land better jobs. I have worked with people all over the country, in Canada, and occasionally in the UK. These people find me on Linked In, and through Facebook or one of my websites and the success stories of these former strangers give me so much personal and professional satisfaction, I am often in awe of the time we live in where connecting comes so easily.
And truly, when musicians from different countries can be mixed together to create beautiful music without leaving their homes and children in remote Africa can get cameras and money for necessities of life and previously-forgotten animals can be placed in loving homes, what limit is there to what we can do with these modern tools?
Any thoughts on these examples of technology-enabled collaboration? What are you favorite examples of collaboration using social media and technology? Share in the comments, please.
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I'm Jenny Yerrick Martin, a veteran hiring executive, career consultant and strategist, expert resume, bio, and web content writer, and the creator of entertainment career site, YourIndustryInsider.com.
