Truly great collaboration partnerships don’t happen every day - or even every year. This Arkadin infographic looks at a century of great collaboration stories.
Even on multi-decade timescales, truly earth-shaking collaborations only pop up every decade or two. But when they do, they’re easy to recognise.
They involve big challenges, with the fate of nations and industries at their mercy. Perfect planning, with pin-sharp focus on strategy and strengths leading to extraordinary outcomes, changing the lives of billions.
The partnerships below aren’t the only ones, but they’re among the greatest. Collaborative technology - from transatlantic telegraphs to broadband conferencing and presence - played its role in every one.
Memorándum de Entendimiento (MoU) entre Codelco y SQM
100 years of great collaboration
1. 100 years
of great
collaboration
1900
1901
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1900 -
1920
1920-
1940
Few think of America’s “Robber
Barons” as collaborators, but in fact
the men and women of these families
worked together smoothly. Oil needed
railroads; construction needed banking;
businesses needed customers.
With divergent businesses but shared
goals, men like Rockefeller, Carnegie,
Vanderbilt, and Morgan became the first
billionaires. Questionable monopolistic
practices led to kinder legacies - the
universities, libraries, and hospitals that
help millions today.
What does a small artistic movement
in 1920s Italy have to do with global
collaboration? Everything. The Futurists’
delight in machines, movement, and
speed made countless creatives see
technology as a positive force for good.
Futurism infused a scary, fast-changing
world with breathless optimism. From
the ambition of the Hoover Dam, to the
Apollo programme to the architecture of
Miami, the partnership of the Futurists
is here in the present.
The big event of the 20th century had
a two-man collaboration at its core -
without either of whom the result might
have been very different.
Churchill was a planner and strategist;
Roosevelt had more reactive
tactics. Roosevelt collected stamps,
Churchill preferred whisky. Despite
their differences, their transatlantic
collaboration worked brilliantly,
because their goals were clear and the
consequences of failure huge.
The greatest minds in tech began their
careers where the transistorised circuit
was invented. Just eight people2
from
the same lab - including Moore and
Noyce of Intel - had a hand in over
400 startups, creating the hotbed of
innovation we call Silicon Valley.
Why “traitorous”? All left Shockley
Semiconductor due to the abrasive
style of CEO William Shockley, despite
inventing the tech that would one
day enable greater collaboration than
anyone ever dreamed of.
Everyone knows Steve Jobs’ impact
on computing, but few know Apple’s
early days were an equal partnership
between the design expert and another
Steve named Wozniak.
Academic “Woz” was the brains behind
the early Apples, while Jobs focussed
on how people used them - a novel
approach before 1984. It’s made Apple
today’s biggest and most profitable
company.
Yes. You. In today’s webbed world, great
partnerships aren’t just between the
rich and world-famous. The greatest
collaboration of all is a sum: millions and
billions of interactions over air and fibre,
connecting the world’s people and ideas
in a vast global conversation.
You’re part of it. So are your friends
colleagues, and customers.
Partnerships take
many forms, but they
all have collaboration
at the core.
Every decade has its
great collaborators
- and technology
enables them.
Technology enables
collaboration… but
great partnerships still
need human warmth.
DEFINING TRAIT:
Mutual gain
Sometimes,
collaboration doesn’t
take communication.
DEFINING TRAIT:
Ideas take
many forms
but creative
collaboration can
keep them coherent.
DEFINING TRAIT:
Shared
understanding,
with common
ground comes clear
purpose.
DEFINING TRAIT:
Great
collaboration
is respect.
Working in
partnership means
bringing more
than one stroke of
genius to the table
and a whole set of
additional ideas.
DEFINING TRAIT:
Clear roles.
When different
skillsets match, it’s
marketing magic.
DEFINING TRAIT:
The power
of all.
Get everyone
collaborating, and
great things happen.
Takeaway
The gilded
philanthropists
The Futurists
Churchill and
Roosevelt
The traitorous
eight
Jobs and
Wozniak
YOU
1940-
1960
1960-
1980
1980-
2000
2000-
2020
Sources:
1. http://visual.ly/8-famous-business-partnerships-really-worked
2. http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2011/05/how_the_traitor.php
3. http://www.businessinsider.com/10-super-successful-cofounders-and-why-their-partnerships-worked-2011-6?op=1&IR=T
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