World, meet Vertigo.

In the coming years, we’re all going to see collaboration as one of the most under-utilised resources of our time.

Let’s jump into it.

A phrase that’s becoming more and more popular is ‘1+1=3’ — used when alluding that partnering on a project is in the best interest for everyone involved. It’s become a buzzword; something that’s thrown out there to communicate the general concept of cooperation.
But it’s so much more than that.

If we really dig into 1+1=3, it’s more than just a broken math equation, and it’s more than a buzzword. It’s a redefinition of collaboration, and it serves to break our understanding of how we do business today.

At its core, 1+1=3 is the concept that we can gain more from working together than the sum of our resources combined.
This is a lofty claim — and it’s difficult to wrap one's head around how massive a concept it really is. We don’t naturally see things from this kind of perspective; the closest we’ve come to a concept this powerful is compound interest and exponential growth, something Einstein famously touted as the most powerful force in the universe. But this isn’t simply the growth of value — it’s not even the growth of the growth of value. This is the creation of value.

We’ve traditionally understood collaboration to be synonymous with cooperation; two groups of people working together to complete a shared goal. Under this classical view of collaboration, parties continue to act in their own best interest (with collaboration serving as the means to an end), they continue their standard behaviours of resource consumption, and they limit communication to both the scope of the project and what they deem appropriate to be shared.

Collaboration in this 1+1=3 world is very different, though — it has to be. To create game-changing value, collaboration between two organisations must involve the universal sharing of resources, it must involve all parties acting in the best interest of the group as a whole, and it must involve outstanding communication across the board.

For the intents of the project, these two parties need to essentially become one. In the 1+1=3 world, collaboration doesn’t serve as a means to an end; it is the end. All goals achieved along the way are secondary to that primary goal.

So this is all good in theory — collaboration could well be undervalued in organisations, and it could well have the potential to change a lot of basic understandings around how businesses operate. But right now that’s all it really is — theory. So let’s start to prove it.

My plan is to do this in two parts — part one I can do right now in this post. There are examples of this ‘new’ understanding of collaboration being used already out and about in the world, and I can share that with you. The second part is going to take time, and I’ll get into why soon.

For now, let’s look to the past. The very recent past, to be specific — when something magic happened between Apple and Mastercard. One made consumer technology, the other was in financial services. The fact that you probably already know what product I’m talking about here speaks to their success in working together — but at the time, it was difficult to imagine what either organisation could do for the other. Let’s set the scene.

Apple was about to launch their new iPhone, along with something that was designed to totally change how we interact with our devices — the Apple Watch. They knew it was going to be big, but they wanted it to be bigger. Enter Mastercard. Mastercard were looking towards the future of payment technology, and wanted to be on the cutting edge of what’s to come. These could have been two totally separate goals, with no Venn between either organisation ever transpiring. But someone saw a magic opportunity to collaborate. Someone found a way to reach two distinct and massive goals with one solution.

There’s way more to this story, but the end result is clear: Apple and Mastercard not only achieved what neither part could do alone, but they achieved what neither party could do with the sum of their resources combined. It took the unique perspectives of both organisations, the expertise of both industries, and the relationships formed by everyone involved to make Apple Pay happen.

This has been a relationship that’s flourished over time, too — just last month, Apple and Mastercard announced another product of their groundbreaking partnership: Apple Card. Together, these two companies have cultivated a long term and mutually beneficial relationship that’s earned both organisation’s millions of dollars and fundamentally changed how we all experience our day to day transactions. That’s the power of collaboration.

So on to step two — proving that we can create this magic ourselves — that any organisation has the potential to alter the foundations of the game they play through collaboration.

This is where I step in. I’m starting Vertigo Collaborative to achieve this very goal — to explore and evangelize how this new understanding of collaboration can change organisations and industries alike.
Everything I’ve just discussed is only the tip of the iceberg. There are more examples of world-changing collaboration out there, and there are more ways to harness collaboration to the benefit of everyone. I plan to explore all of it, and I’d love for you to join me.
It’s a better world when we work together, and I can’t wait to prove it with you.

Until next time,

Finn // Vertigo Collaborative