In his book A Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink writes, "What's in greatest demand today isn't analysis but synthesis -- seeing the big picture, crossing boundaries, and being able to combine disparate pieces into an arresting new whole." But perhaps one of the more perplexing issues facing all members of the current university community involves finding an adequate way to collaborate with the disparate university pieces to form an arresting new whole. How do we collaborate both across departments and across institutions?
Various members of the Penn Community (with a large showing from the Graduate School of Education) met to try to answer this question in a rather unorthodox setting. We met in Incubation Station #1 at the Weiss Tech House. It's a 180 square foot room equipped with all of the necessary tools for a real brainstorming session including wall-to-wall whiteboards. We met with the mindset of having a REAL brainstorming session which Dan Pink describes as adhering to the following guidelines:
1. Go for Quantity. Good ideas emerge from lots of ideas. Set a numerical goal.
2. Encourage Wild Ideas. Extremism is a virtue. The right idea often flows from what initially seems outlandish.
3. Be visual. Pictures unlock creativity.
4. Defer Judgment. There's no such thing as a bad idea, so banish the naysayers. Think creatively first and critically later.
5. One Conversation at a Time. Listen, be polite, and build on others' suggestions.
In order to get to know one another and to encourage creativity, we started off with an ice breaker where everyone had a minute and a half to draw a visual depiction of themselves on the whiteboard. Interestingly there were a lot of smiley faces on the board with various objects surrounding them - leading me to believe that at the very least, we were a happy group of people. Some others drew abstract images that represented more personal facets of their lives. All in all, it was a good opening exercise.
What is Collaboration?
After the ice breaker, we decided to define what exactly we meant by collaboration. We started off with the dictionary definition, "to work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavor" and then proceeded with some of our own definitions and thoughts on the word:
-two heads are better than one
-emphasis on process - how will collaboration happen?
-products grow out of the process (ie. If I do X and you do Y we might create Z)
-what do we mean by together - negotiation? teamwork?
-not always an intellectual endeavor
-working towards a common goal
-willingness to cooperate (how do you foster the willingness?)
-what's the difference between cooperation vs. collaboration vs. competition? Cooperation sounds more forced than collaboration. Competition can be positive when it fosters collaboration but it can also be negative.
-taking ownership over the project; buy in and investment of the group
Why Collaborate? What are the Benefits?
Next, we tackled the question - why would we want to collaborate as opposed to working alone?
-efficiency
-more connections and applications of discoveries
-gateway to each others' worlds
-minds function at quicker rate together
-more effective and integrated solutions
-improve interpersonal skills and build community
-breaking down prejudices or biases
-self awareness - things about yourself are reflected back to you by others
-more sense of ownership: responsibility to group; social quality check
How Do We Collaborate Already?
We took a break from the whiteboards for a while and talked about ways that we already collaborate at work, at home, in the classroom, and in various other domains of our lives. The answers ranged from cooking to study groups to carpooling with other parents to take kids to nursery school.
How Can We Collaborate More Across Campus and Across Universities?
For this final question we set an idea destination number of 50 and enthusiastically reached our limit plus some extras. We didn't hold back and we embraced each idea with an open mind knowing the potential that each thought held for making the university a more collaborative environment. We tried to address the issue that universities are often "silo-ed" or that each department and school tends to act as a separate entity as opposed to part of a larger whole. The ideas range from crazy and silly to serious with the potential to be implemented.
1. Eliminate the school name in email addresses so that we all come from Penn.
2. Shut down the university operations for 2 hours ever 2 weeks for collaboration.
3. Rotating showcase of different departments.
4. Self awareness training (if you know yourself you'll be better able to collaborate)
5. Requirements to walk to other departments/offices
6. Library walk/crawl (kind of like a bar crawl to the different libraries on campus - could have wine and cheese!)
7. Security access to other departments/buildings.
8. Mingling events
9. More intramural sports
10. Projects that require interdisciplinary research
11. University wide scavenger hunts (with prizes!)
12. Big issue web list
13. Book/crafts clubs
14. Master schedule of EVERYTHING going on across the university
15. Take all signs off buildings so people are forced to ask one another where they are.
16. Sharing of common resources
17. More informal meetings
18. Do away with agendas (on occasion)
19. Free/unadvertised events (like an ice cream social!)
20. Encourage people to talk to strangers across the university
21. Campus-wide ice breaker questions
22. Free lunch extended
23. Teach time management so that we have more time for collaboration
24. Bring friends to events
25. Incentivise student interaction
26. Business cards with random facts/information about yourself (more than just your title)
27. Contest for collection of business cards (like pokemon - gotta catch em all!)
28. Collectivise goals (Why are we here? What is Penn's mission and how are we each contributing to that mission?)
29. Special credits for collaborating
30. Hold events outside of business hours
31. Class credit for collaboration
32. Defining collaboration events.
33. Budget allocation for collaboration.
34. Weekend events for international students.
35. Day care for events so that more people can participate.
36. Grants for faculty collaboration
37. Establish a department of collaboration.
38. Integrate student housing
39. Meetings for multiple schools to breed ideas
40. Craigslist style list for collaboration. (ie. someone could post their idea and ask for help and others could respond who were interested in the same topic)
41. Second life style collaboration
42. Universal tags
43. Failure resumes of fellow employees
44. Werenotperfect.com (to share imperfections)
45. School style gang colors - to get to know people from different schools.
46. Costume Party
47. Cross school art activities
48. Rebuildable buildings activity - to get to know the campus
49. Across Penn Socials/ Library Social (library socials already take place!)
50. Locust Walk Block Party
51. Experimental College
52. Repository for funny responses




Can you think of more ways to collaborate????