Interaction with strangers cultivates creativity and provides opportunities for joining forces to achieve great ends.
Interaction with strangers cultivates creativity and provides opportunities for joining forces to achieve great ends. However most people tend to avoid talking or working with people they do not know, whether in the library, a classroom, or in academic and nonprofit settings. And to do so is to short-circuit much of the creative potential that is so necessary for innovation, and that organizational stakeholders crave. Enter CoLAB. Developed and presented by de Farber at workshops across the country, and used by the authors to successfully spur faculty-librarian collaboration at the University of Florida, it showcases the power of face-to-face conversations. Leading readers through a unique framework that breaks down barriers to collaboration while also kindling long-lasting enthusiasm, this manual includes testimonials from workshop participants that demonstrate the benefits of a Collaborating with Strangers workshop; step by step guidance on every aspect of organizing and presenting a CoLAB workshop; helpful photographs and diagrams that show prep and workshops in action; ready to use surveys for assessment before and after the workshop; grant proposal development techniques for bringing two or more organizations together on a project; pointers on how to adapt the workshop for ice-breakers, conference programs, or classrooms; and samples of workshop promotion pieces that can be adapted as needed.Libraries have always connected patrons to resources and information; this resource shows how, through successful group collaboration, organizations can extend that connection to include the talents and assets of community members.
This guide show those in libraries and other organizations how to promote, facilitate, and evaluate collaboration development workshops in their communities. It outlines step-by-step practices for initiating collaborative relationships through CoLAB Workshops (developed by de Farber), which provide comfortable environments for meeting strangers and facilitate the discovery of hidden resources or potential partnership relationships, generate new ideas for innovation and research, and advance the resolution of problems by leveraging untapped assets, with an emphasis on one-on-one “speed-meetings.” It explains the key role of engaging strangers in face-to-face conversations in forming new partnerships and the steps needed to execute scenarios of workshops for different types of participants or situations. It describes two past CoLAB Workshops; results and participant stories for CoLAB Workshops; instructions for conducting them; different options for CoLAB activities in meetings or conferences and strategies for workshops that focus on a specific topic, region, across disciplines, or grant proposals; finding sponsors for workshops; designing and pushing out promotional materials, designing a workshop website, and using social media for postworkshop connections; and recommendations for dealing with 20 different situations that may arise. Annotation ©2017 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)
