Harold and Sheryl’s Blog on Writing a Blog, Collaboratively. Post 1: Keeping Collaborative Writing Projects Afloat

(This is the first post in the series authored by Harold Bull and Sheryl Mills on successful collaborative writing. Harold is Assistant Professor Biochemistry, Microbiology & Immunology. Sheryl is Associate Director, Academic Programs & Interprofessional Education)

If you are considering writing collaboratively or are wondering why some promising attempts at collaborative writing have failed to flourish, this post might provide some insight into the shadowy assumption-laden landscape of ‘collaboration.’ Here we explore the (hypothetical) meta-level of our collaborative writing by reflecting on the process and actual structure that guided the creation of the “things”[1] the authors have written together—so far. Through reflection, we revealed—even to ourselves—the underlying architecture[2] that has made our collaborative writing successful. Success indicators for us are threefold: (1) we get things written, (2) our time is productive, and (3) the process is enjoyable.

We’re guessing that, like us, you’ve had ‘collaborative’ experiences where there has been a great deal of initial enthusiasm and motivation seemed high all round. 😊 There was the potential for great projects that could have been meaningful and relevant and great people were involved—collaborators who had the necessary knowledge, skills, and willingness—initially. But for some reason or other the initiative simply dwindled…faded…atrophied…and then disappeared into oblivion. There were no more emails exchanged. The enthusiasm waned and there was an unwritten agreement that ‘nobody would ever mention it again’. 😕

But this hasn’t happened with this writing team! Collaboratively we have written 15 blog posts over six months. How did this work?!? In this post we explore the differences betwixt and between those less productive experiences and writing our CURE blog series. First, we outline what we think kept our project inflated and afloat, and then we explore potential deflating factors that we believe we avoided.

 We believe the following factors kept our project ‘inflated’ 😁:

1. Two or more people consistently turned up. 😉
2. We agreed to (1) a regular weekly meeting time to (2) accomplish shared goals.
3. We learned new things as we are going…and kept discovering we knew
4. We remained open to learning new things, exploring options and tangents, and playing with ideas that didn’t necessarily work out for the topic on hand—SQUIRREL[3]!
5. We have enough trust in one another, and our process, to know there is a good chance that there will be a nugget of relevance to wherever the heck we wandered.
6. Neither of us knew the ‘right answer’ coming in.
7. A sense of accomplishment provided intermittent reinforcement[4] that happened often and surprisingly, not just with the completion of each blog post or even the entire series, but thought by thought, well-crafted sentence by well-crafted sentence, a word spelled correctly THE FIRST TRY, or finding the best phrasing to convey our desired thought. And the absolute delight of landing on the very best word in all ways—that always gave us a win! 😎
8. Collaboratively, we made the necessary time to explore and dig down to discover the underlying key point(s).
9. We gave ourselves the permission to revisit, revise, or/and rethink our initial assumptions and explore ‘outside the lines’.[5]
10. Our motives, values, and goals were aligned.[6]
11. Our communication styles are also aligned. This helps us to be honest …with style 🙂
12. One of the key-factors (pointed out by our colleague, Dawn[7]) was the self-reinforcing feedback loop[8]:
    1. Writing the posts was fun to do and the time just flew by!
    2. We enjoy a shared sense of humor. We get each other’s jokes and word-play puns…eventually! 🤡
    3. Collectively, we have eclectic interests that have compounded and combined through creating the series.
    4. We laugh a lot! Work shouldn’t be this much fun? HAH – we disagree!
    5. Remember those ideas that we talked about ‘squirrelling’ away? We found that we often did go back to those nuggets, and they did have value. We would stick with it until we polished that sucker up enough to see where it fit … or tossed it aside or held it aside for a future (more directly relevant) blog post (…see blog post 117a 😉).
    6. The drafts of our first two posts received very positive responses from (our cherry-picked) external readers. (Know your audience. 😏) Reviewers actually ‘got’ our jokes!

These, in a very large nutshell, are the factors that we believe have contributed to our productivity and success.

Remember those other initiatives we mentioned earlier? The ones that simply dwindled… faded… atrophied… and then disappeared into oblivion?  Now, we will peek into the project pit of despair we lightly refer to as the ‘dark side’ of collaborative interactions that simply (perhaps, thankfully) fade away…

We believe we avoided the following factors that have sucked the life-force out of other projects that we have tried to be involved with[9] 🤔😕:

1. We don’t do multitasking during our working time together. We are both present and actively engaged in the process.
2. We turn up for our regularly scheduled meetings—unless there are extenuating circumstances.
3. If there are changes, we provide adequate notice. There are no late notifications of ‘not attending today’… or just not attending today, and no notification given (aww … sitting alone in a virtual room[10]…how sad is that?).[11]
4. Our meetings fly by! Unlike those ‘pit of despair’[12] meetings that seem to draaaaaaag on forever, our meetings are fun![13]
5. Being closet introverts, we need some space to get our ideas flowing—and then watch out! We find we are easily subdued by more aggressive approaches and ‘open and shut’ cases that leave no space for exploring. In our experience, ‘squirrel-killers’[14] and ‘rude’ communicators[15] can stifle dynamic interactions and muffle our potential contributions. We give each other space and regularly fill those squirrel feeders.[16]
6. Through honest negotiation[17] (we call a nutty idea a nutty idea as the need arises) we avoid misalignments in:
   1. Scheduling priorities (we operate under the assumption that people always find time for what they really want to do).
   2. Project goals and vision for the perceived end products. This includes being clear on target audience, forum, journal, venue, etc.
   3. ‘Credit’ (order of authorship—we use alphabetical, —inclusion in publications, ‘street cred’, etc. And we look forward to equally sharing the income from our wide line of discovery-centric ‘merch’ 😉).
   4. Enthusiasm and overall interest in the project.
   5. Most importantly, our commitment levels—and our motives—are in alignment. Neither of us trims the project to meet our own individual needs.
7. We consistently capitalize on our skill sets as opposed to ‘using’ one another to achieve individual goals. [18] There is no “I want this for ME!”[19]
8. We avoid things that we have felt like hard work! When it feels like rowing against the current (with some members of the ‘team’ appearing to paddle in some other direction going somewhere else!), we know we are in the wrong boat—canoe, kayak, floaty toy. A few examples of what feels like ‘hard work’ to us are:
   1. It takes 10 emails just to get this [project, meeting, task, work group, party] started. At some point you have to realize that they are ‘just not that into you it’!
   2. When things you say are constantly misunderstood and need to be explained in detail there is little energy left for the real work.
   3. You are constantly on the defensive. That, too, takes energy and sucks the life-force out of your project.

And there you have it! Harold and Sheryl’s list of things they avoid, keeping their collaborative writing project(s!) moving.

In summary, in this post, we explored the qualities that kept our CURE Blog project inflated and afloat, and we have contrasted this with some of the characteristics that we suspect deflated other collaborative attempts in our collective pasts.

What worked for us might not be what works for you. What leached the vitality out of other collaborative attempts might not be deal breakers for you. What we think is important is that you and your team members discuss and negotiate what contributes to successful and productive collaborating.

Stay tuned for our next post in this series where we explore the importance of successful negotiations for collaboration.

[1] The “thing” we are referring to is the blog post series on the CURE course.

[2] Just like the CURE process had a successful architecture that guided our process.

[3] Stay tuned for more on this. We squirrelled many ideas away for future projects. This post, for example, is an example of one of those ideas that was squirrelled away!

[4] Intermittent reinforcement defined We don’t ALWAYS laugh at each other’s jokes. 😉

[5] The rigid ‘lines’ of academic writing were found to be too constraining for us. So, we evolved our story to become a blog (then a series of posts). Even then, the ‘lines’ we initially drew for ourselves were more like guidelines than actual rules. There is nothing rigid about the approaches we have taken with our collaborative projects.

[6] Also aligned is our sense of humor.

[7] Dawn is our coauthor for the CURE blog series.

[8] When we compared our work sessions to this diagram (scroll down the linked page to find the spiral) we noticed that our sessions tend to have an upward spiral.

[9] These tend to be on the downward end of the spiral—they have crossed the inflection point of no return…😞

[10] Song – One (is the loneliest number), Harry Nilsson 1968. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_(Harry_Nilsson_song)

[11] Competing priorities. We understand the concept and we understand that life happens, but priority misalignment can be a real deflator – especially if the topic is high on your list and the bottom of someone else’s.

[12] For us, ‘pit of despair’ meetings are recognizable by the lack of productivity, gnawing sense of frustration, and an agitating and unsettling feeling of impatience at not getting anything accomplished.

[13] What we mean as ‘fun’ (as defined by Glasser) is that we are making headway, things are getting done, and we are learning new things (we also explore this idea in Post 9 or our CURE Blog series). If you take another look at the emotional guidance scale spiral, note the ‘boredom’ inflection point that bridges up from down.

[14] Keep reading – in Post 3 - to find out about ‘squirrels’ aka – our secret weapon! Squirrel-killers come in all shapes and sizes, but are often identified as that person with the checklist who wants to stick to the agenda come hell or high-water, and the task completion seems to be more important than exploring ideas or the process of discovery … even if the ‘task’ hasn’t been completely vetted and agreed upon.

[15] It might not actually be rude, but it is perceived as rude by the recipient.

[16] i.e. we do not wrap our trees with wire mesh or tinfoil to keep squirrels out of bird feeders. Note: Harold has a cabin (undisclosed location).

[17] More on this in blog post 2 in this series.

[18] You may want to take a look at the emotional guidance scale spiral once again.

[19] See Glasser once again for the power needs.