Creative Collaboration - Visual Essay

1. By definition, “creative collaboration” is the sense of being productive, creative, thoughtful, understanding, open and strategic as a group. My group was assigned the cafeteria as our space for our visual essay. Our goal was simple. We all knew what we wanted to achieve through our thesis: to show whether or not an early intervention proves to be beneficial in the war against segregation and the human tendencies as kids grow up. From the moment we wrote down our first thoughts and ideas, to watching the finished product, we, as a group worked as a team. We all came up with ideas of where and how to take the pictures, and what potential thesis could be, which in the end, resulted in a project based purely on at least one idea from each member of the group. We split up the project to fit our strengths. I felt like all of the members of the group monitored their “flow,” or rather, submerged their ego well. Like most group projects, after many disagreements you just want it to be based on your ideas, and your work. However, we realized for this project we all had contribute and work together because we had different perspectives that would just make our final product better.  While our group was great at saying what we thought, being enthusiastic, knowing our strengths and being empathetic, we struggled with mostly with equally dividing up the tasks. However, all in all we had a very productive, focused, and determined group.

2. My main strategy for being a leader was to listen to everyone’s opinions and build off of them. One part of the project where I saw myself as a leader was in the making of the video. One of my strengths is designing and editing things, so I knew that I would be able to enjoy and stay focused on this part of the project. Bakari helped out with taking the photos, and Rachel did a great job writing the intention statement. I think that by having people assigned to do tasks based on their strengths, the whole process becomes very efficient and simply more enjoyable.

3. My greatest challenges in being part of this group were remembering to “realize that you don’t completely control the outcome.” For me, group projects tend to get stressful, because of deadlines, disagreement, miscommunication and the concept of a “shared vision.”  Although I know I struggle with group projects, I am very happy with the outcome of our video and intention statement, and thought we worked very well together as a group.