Collaborative Circles

book by Michael P Farrell ISBN:0226238679

2023: Brian Marick: the problem with Farrell’s /Collaborative Circles/ as a podcast topic is that collaborative circles have at least two fairly distinct styles: “bro-ish”, competitive, aggressive (see image); improv-style, “feminine”, with “yes, and…” reactions to ideas. The problem with Farrell’s book is that it’s driven by the bro-ish case studies (the Impressionists, the Fugitive Poets)... The non-bro-ish alternatives (like the Inklings of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, and the Ultras of US first-wave feminists) are described, but the most crucial differences – generative group dynamics – are left aside. The pathologies of low-trust competitive stereotypically-male culture are treated as universal and examined in detail... The Inklings and the Ultras made a big impact without all of the middle-school emotionality and crushed friendships of the Impressionists and the Context-Driven Testing school.

• (Chapter 6 is Two Sticks of a Drum: Elizabeth Cady Stranton, Susan B. Anthony, and the Circle of Ultras)
• cf Scenes, Collaborations, Inventions, And Progress