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The rebirth of the Collaboration Age
The need for collaborative solutions to create and sustain a balanced use of global resources began when profit, power and growth became more prized than people, community, trust and interdependence.
In 2004, Toronto's Bruce Mau Design collaborated with the Institute Without Boundaries. The result is a sobering educational experience titled Massive Change. The exhibition and tour were commissioned and organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery. It has spun off a newsletter, radio show and book expanding the principles of the project. It explores and highlights the capacity, power, and promise of collaboration in rebuilding a sustainable society.
The scale of this project is monumental. By contrast, its simplicity in visual, verbal and audio presentation is elegant. I discovered the site last week and spent an hour before coming up for air. This should be required reading for every decision maker whose choices affect the future. That includes everyone who spends money.
Mau, and his extended team of collaborators are champions of responsible innovation. Innovation alone is not good enough. Because a process or product can exist does not mean it should. The present global business climate is maniacally focused on innovation as the source of never-ending revenue increases. But growth for the sake of growth is synonymous with cancer. When a malignancy consumes its host, the system collapses.
Mau’s perspective on sustainability was defined in 1998 when he wrote The Incomplete Manifesto for Growth. Its title suggests the dynamic nature of the world. The brief text defines how a designer should address it. Design analyzes processes. The metrics of that process determine whether the outcome is sustainable, responsible and sociable.
The concept of Might is right was the mantra in an Industrial Age. But, its time to flip that concept. Right is might. Sustainability, powered by a collaborative approach to design and action is the correct path for innovation and the only path back to a balanced world where the future belongs to the team players, not the highest bidders.
Chas Martin
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