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4 Things “Big Tobacco” can Teach us About Controversial Conversations at the Holidays
Recently, several friends and colleagues have said some version to me of, “This isn’t who I am, Richard. I’m not that kind of person, but honestly, I just don’t have any friends anymore who voted for [fill in the blank]. I just don’t know how to talk to them.” During...
Making Backbone Organizations Work
Getting people from across the public, private, and civil sectors to effectively work together comes down to one fundamental question: how do you get people to work with you who don’t work for you? Humans excel at getting people to work with us who do work for us....
Enough with all the Cost-Plus Contracting Already
Tackling 3 Myths Around Cost-Plus Contracting from our CEO and Master Collaborator, Richard Crespin I’ve worked in government contracting on-and-off for nearly three decades, supporting federal defense, intel, and civilian agencies. And in all that time, I...
Co-Creation, the BAA, and the Nature of Humanity
Four Tips for Unlocking Creativity without Short-Circuiting Your Brain from our CEO & Master Collaborator, Richard Crespin Imagine you had lived your whole life up to this point under a benign dictatorship. You live under the dictator’s strict regimen of rules...
Not-So-Passionate about Passion Voting
A Small Change to Avoid Big Mistakes from Groupthink by Beth Skorochod, CollaborateUp's Director of Practice The meeting is the most fundamental form of human collaboration. You really can’t get anything significant done that involves more than one...
Collaboration vs. Consensus
Most organizations are not democracies. Some are flatter or more hierarchical than others, but almost all reserve certain decisions to a small group — managers or leaders. In a multi-stakeholder collaboration, though, is this also true? Many people seem to think the...
Collaboration Tip #5: DON’T Just Invite the Usual Suspects
Who to invite to your co-creation party? Whether you’re trying to jumpstart a community garden or start a world wide community, the right invites can make all the difference. The key is figuring out what you want from your event. Is it all about fun? Is it meant to be...
Defining Member Roles, Responsibilities, and Rights
Who’s in? Who’s not? What do people and organizations get and give for belonging? How well do they do when they are tasked to work together? These items and more are often lumped together as “governance” in a partnership and can take many forms from unwritten...
Cyber Security Co-Creation Workshop in Ukraine
Cyber-security is a large-scale problem in the Ukraine, and it doesn’t stop at their borders. It spills over to the United States and eventually becomes a global problem. Cyber threats are sufficient to stall development progress, so USAID/Ukraine brought eight...
Democracy Rights and Governance (DRG): Advancing Integrity in the Media (AIM)
USAID’s DRG Office wanted to address the threat of disinformation in local contexts, consider best practices to inform programming strategies and priorities, and develop a set of fundable concepts for adaptive and measurable solutions. CollaborateUp worked closely...