A collaborative writer is someone who works with at least one other person to produce a text and achieve a common purpose. Now, a group of writers can produce a lot of text. To ensure that all those pieces go together well, the team should agree on practices and tools while tracking progress throughout the phases of…
Helping one another at different levels: A continuum of collaboration
When two or more people collaborate, they put their efforts together to achieve a goal that they hold in common. Their work can be carried out in different intensities of “togetherness.” Our awareness of the various types or levels of collaboration is very helpful. We can gauge our involvement in a project. Using the degree of involvement, we can then measure how we…
Collaborative Writing is Antifragile
Collaborative writing is a way to make a document better than if it were written by one person. Things can get better through uncertainty and seeming disorder. In his book, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, Nassim Nicholas Taleb looks at human activity from this unique perspective: Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to…
Law 3. Identify the writing mandate and agree on a process
When there is writing to be done, most people expect some magic to happen. The mystique surrounding the creative process is powerful. There is no magic, though. Setting words on the page is a process and having a plan is key. Very early on in the development process, your team must capture the expectations for the project….
Law 1. All writing in organizations is collaborative
It’s tempting to think of writing as a something one does alone. All writing is, to some extent, collaborative. Many book forewords tell the story of how people helped the author: editors, mentors, peers, wives or husbands, friends, kids—even the cat. The content still belongs to the author whose name appears on the cover. As Ray Bradbury…
The 10 laws of collaborative writing
How do you make sure you are collaborating effectively with your writing colleagues? Here are 10 laws to guide you: All writing in organizations is collaborative. Respect thy collaborators as thyself. Identify the writing mandate and agree on a process. Assess the requirements for the project (even when there’s no time). Agree on practices and tools, and…
Collaborative writing in history: The Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence is a great example of collaborative writing. All the elements are there: a writing mandate, plenty of source material, consultation with experts, a tight timeline, committees, key writers of great skill, various drafts, and a three-day meeting, during which the text is edited by many players. The writing team is even told to take…
The Write Stuff
Yikes, the report is due Monday and it’s Thursday already! Does your organization have a plan to meet tight deadlines? How would your team pull together the information and resources to meet your organization’s goals? First reactions to a situation like this would say a lot about how the team understands its mandate. What people say reflects…