In preparation for having Jessica Helfand speak with my Capstone Course, I've been thinking a lot about collaboration. Jessica is skeptical of the overuse of words like co-creation, which can be confused with collaboration.

I'm beggining to see co-creation as two or more individuals working on one thing at the same time. Think about workshops with lots of post-it notes.

Alternatively, collaboration is when two or more individuals are working together, maybe on the same project, and often not in the same studio space. What's more, they may not even know they're working together. 

For example, Italian designer Francesco Franci said (in Issue 99 of Eye Magazine) that a publication he designed was inspired by the movie Dunkirk directed by Christopher Nolan. In a sense, one could say that Christopher Nolan played a part in creating the newspaper with Franci. Nolan has no idea (I suspect). 

Another example of collaboration is drawing games like Exquisite Corpse or design challenges like Layer Tennis. Both exercises involve two or more people working individually but building upon the other person's work (not at the same time). 

One more example of collaboration might be the design critique. In a useful critique, a designer presents her work to others in their field for feedback that will make the project more effective.

So, what's the difference between these examples of co-creation and collaboration? I think it has something to do with decision making. In each of the collaborative cases, it's up to an individual to make a decision. Their decisions are influenced by others, but not produced by them. However, co-creation is far more democratic. There's often voting involved in deciding the best direction forward. I have to admit, I like co-creation for that reason because I prefer to distribute the responsibility of decision making (avoiding the blame when things go array). I'm not alone, I suspect, in that view (see Design Thinking).

Yet, what are we forfeiting when we pass the buck to others (the team)? Are we doing design students a disservice by teaching them that in the group lies the answer? I don't think this is a design problem as much as it is a human problem. I'm sure there's a statistic somewhere, but I get the sense (in myself) and from others that people have a hard time making decisions. We want validation or evidence, first, so that we can make the best decision possible. We measure likes on Instagram or Avery dots on whiteboards, all in the name of making a secure choice (ironically, that won't make the individual look stupid). But are our selections ever that secure? 

What I'm getting at is that making decisions is hard. Still, we must discover how to make our own decisions (in collaboration, not co-creation). I find solace in knowing that there are are no perfect decisions. There are only decisions, and as my wife and I like to say, there are only good decisions (bad = no decision). Whatever the outcomes of our choices, positive or negative, we can respond with resilience, adapting to whatever results. And, that is what we need to be teaching our design students. How to make their own decisions, but more importantly, how to respond to whatever adventure happens next.