POWER POD: Collaboration The Creativ & Kin Podcast

Today's episode is on a topic I absolutely love! Collaboration!! If you've listened to a few episodes on here, you'll know by now that my heart beats for community - in the sense of women working together and supporting each other. I am an encourager at heart and just a general dream-believer and supporter. So when someone says "collaboration", I am there!

So let's quickly unpack what a "collab" is and then I'll share a bit about what it has meant for me this year...

A collaboration is a working practice whereby individuals work together to a common purpose to achieve business benefit. Other words to describe it would be: partnership, alliance, teamwork, cooperation and my favourite: connection. Collaboration enables individuals to work together to achieve a defined and common business (or creative) purpose.

So collaborations, when done right - can result in beautiful partnerships where the journey together brings out each individual's strengths and marries them into something that is exponentially better than those of each individual in isolation. There is so much magic in shared creativity, ideas and knowledge. You play to each other's strengths, learning where to take over and where to let go. And when one of you is down, the other lifts up. When one is unsure, the other finds a way to provide clarity or certainty. I think you can hear the passion here - man, I've just learnt so much from it this year.

So on to my partnership with Jess of Watercolour Heart Illustration.

Designing a planner with Jess was my one big dream for 2020. And then the pandemic and lockdown happened, and I kept stalling on when I would contact Jess to start collaborating on the idea and hopefully the project. When I finally realised that it was halfyear, and an in-person coffee date was not going to happen anytime soon, I took the plunge and asked Jess whether she was still keen on designing a year planner with me and whether she thought we still had enough time left. Her answer was that with it being June already, it would be tight, but that she was in and we could definitely make it happen! It had been a big dream of hers for a long time as well and she was as excited as I was for the journey ahead!!

So we started with a discovery call on zoom the very next week and then started taking it one step at a time.

We set a clear timeline, with priority steps and goals for each of us. We used Asana, a LOT of whatsapp messages and voice notes and MANY zoom calls. There were many shared references and ideas, many revisions. Many happy dances! Many good and sound compromises to keep things local and conscious. The whole process has been thoughtful, intentional and so, so empowering.

One of the most amazing things about this collaboration has been the open communication and in-tuneness (if there is even such a word, hah) with Jess. And that can be applied to any partnership. Towards the end of August, Jess and I were checking in on our timeline and proposed launch date. We were both starting to feel pressured, rushed and uneasy about our launch date. We had an open conversation and decided to move it. Give ourselves more time. This was a unique year and we both felt it would be so good to give people (including ourselves) more time to come to grips with the fact that the year was moving on into a new year, with the uncertainty but also the hope that it would bring.

It also gave us more time to enjoy each step of the journey and the process. To pour intention and purpose into each little detail of the planner, to consider different options, sometimes even just for the sake of considering it and to refine each element to a point where we were both happy and almost giddy with excitement about the end result.

It ...