The Power of Collaboration

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Collaboration is an aspect of digital culture which I have previously discussed on this blog, and one which I continue to find fascinating. In particular, I have lately been thinking about how collaboration, or teamwork is present within the novel of Moby Dick, and what that has to say about collaboration in the digital realm.  In Moby Dick the ship only runs smoothly and functions as the men contribute their various skills and talents to work together in pursuit of the whale.  There is one scene where they are butchering the whale and there is blood and guts everywhere and the sharks are swarming, hoping to get a bite of the whale.  The men are tied together with "monkey-ropes" and are lowered onto the whale.  The idea is, that if someone slips into the water with the waiting sharks, the other men tied to him via the monkey-rope will be able to pull him in.  

In thinking about Dr. Burton's article on the benefits of blogging in the academic sense, we are all tied together with a monkey-rope. In the past, if I had a weak argument or just completely missed the boat with the literature we were studying, my only hope was that there would be a peer-review at some point before the final draft.  Yet with blogging and even status updates, I can receive instant feedback, and even comments that may spark new ideas that lead me onto an entirely new train of thought.  Ideas are able to be shaped in a much more powerful way through collaboration, than if they remained in my head until they were turned in to determine my grade. 

Yet there is also the issue that while Captain Ahab was able to force his crew to "collaborate" with him in his quest for Moby Dick, it ultimately ended in the death and destruction of the entire ship and crew (well, except for Ishmael). So what does that mean for collaboration in our class through blogging? I'm not entirely sure yet. I don't think that we will all be destroyed if one of our ideas or thesis turns out to be just plain awful.  So perhaps a key element to collaboration is that there has to be an extreme level of honesty, and the group in collaboration must share a passion for the vision and end goal.  Without it, the project at hand will probably not see much success.  This may be a topic I wish to write more about, and I've even been brainstorming ways in which we as a class may be able to collaborate even more than compiling blog posts and comments together. Thoughts?