In this guest-produced episode, Sara Bogomolny and Shun-Sho Carmack dive deep into collaboration. They discuss how UNESCO is attempting to save our intangible cultural heritages through collaboration, the fact that switching to a hybrid work model recontextualizes everyone's relationship to their jobs and co-workers, how to orchestrate an ethical reopening of the workforce, and whether collaborating in remote environments increases the potential for equality in the workplace.

Shun-Sho Carmack 0:01

Tools can alter our behaviors, so make sure that the tool will support you in building the organization you want to build.

Victoria Sprowls 0:09

Welcome to the Tech in the Arts podcast brought to you by the Arts Management and Technology Lab at Carnegie Mellon University. Today, we have a special podcast edited and produced by two AMT Lab contributors, Sara Bogomolny and Shun-Sho Carmack who discuss best practices for collaborative processes. Today, they'll focus on the preservation of intangible cultural heritage through collaborative efforts, what collaboration means in a digital world, and how to ethically and responsibly return to the workplace. I hope you enjoy.

Shun-Sho Carmack 0:46

Hey friend.

Sara Bogomolny 0:48

Hey partner.

Shun-Sho Carmack 0:49

And hey, to all our listeners. We're glad you're spending time with us. I'm Shun-Sho Carmack.

Sara Bogomolny 0:54

And I'm Sarah Bogomolny. We're both Master of Arts Management students at Carnegie Mellon University.

Shun-Sho Carmack 1:00

And today, we're diving deep on collaboration, excavating best practices, meditating on some big questions,

Sara Bogomolny 1:08

and ultimately going full meta as we collaborate together to zoom in on collaborative practices. Now we're both coming up this topic of collaboration through the lenses of two very different professional trajectories, and two very different research projects that we've been conducting independently throughout this semester. Shun-Sho, what's fueling your research fire right now.

Shun-Sho Carmack 1:34

For the past few months, I've been deep in the throes of intangible cultural heritage. Now what is this and how does it compare to just regular cultural heritage? Intangible cultural heritage, sometimes shortened to ICH, is formally defined as the practices representations, expressions, knowledge and skills handed down from generation to generation. Now that can be kind of an obtuse concept. So let's look at an example. Think of the pyramids in Egypt. Notably one of the ancient wonders of the world, but people have no idea how they were built. We've lost the knowledge of the how, the practice, the craft. In this example, pyramids are the cultural heritage, specifically a site. You can engage with it with your senses, and it has a physicality to it. The lost knowledge and skills of how to make those pyramids. That's the intangible cultural heritage.

Sara Bogomolny 2:28

Okay, that makes perfect sense. I've attended a lot of Passover Seders in my lifetime, and we have never gone into specifically how those pyramids were built. Now what other things count as intangible cultural heritage?

Shun-Sho Carmack 2:43

Well, beyond traditional craftsmanship, other areas that fall under ICH are oral traditions and expressions, including language as a vehicle for the ICH - the performing arts, social practices, rituals and festive events, and knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe. And it's important to remember that it's not just something that impacts us historically. For example, studies are showing that out of the 7000+ known languages today, over 3000 are endangered. With research showing that a language dies every 40 days. This rate is only supposed to increase over the next century. And as the world becomes increasingly interconnected, and deals with issues of globalization and assimilation, intangible cultural heritage is becoming increasingly relevant for all different kinds of communities. Unless society actively considers how to reckon with all of the facets that comprise ICH, we're in danger of losing it all.

Sara Bogomolny 3:44

You know, before I met you, I had never even heard of ICH.

Shun-Sho Carmack 3:49

It was a new phrase for me too, I honestly hadn't heard of it before I started this project. I had definitely been aware of the concept of almost lost art skills or techniques, right? You know, paint recipes that are lost or the know-how for carving certain materials being gone. But discovering there's an entirely dedicated feel to the subject was honestly fascinating. And finding ways to safeguard and preserve so many different aspects of cultural data is a lot to untangle. But that's a lot about my research. Sarah, tell me what's been pushing your research these days?

Sara Bogomolny 4:23

Well, I have a background in theater. And if you'll pardon the pun, I have played a lot of parts on and off the stage. And as I witnessed the theater world adapt rapidly to the pandemic over the past year and a half, I developed a curiosity for not only how the art form translates to new formats, like doing plays on Zoom, but also how the meta processes of theatrical collaboration have evolved too. Production teams are made up of collaborators with really clearly defined roles, like set designers, costume designers, stage managers. And these people, in the before times, would meet in person to hash out the technical details of how the production elements would come together. With that in-person access cut off during COVID, I'm now attempting to discern how these collaborators have shifted their work. What technological tools and platforms are these folks using to facilitate collaboration when it can't happen face to face? And now that companies are returning to in-person production, what socially distanced collaborative processes are being upheld because they worked really well. I actually think you could argue that I'm examining the intangible cultural heritage of a small slice of American theatrical production, the productions themselves, they can be attended, and the sets can be walked upon, the costumes can be worn, but those intangible processes of collaboration are really at the core of my research right now.

Shun-Sho Carmack 5:58

That's so interesting. And I love how theater can be looked at from different angles and how it can even interconnect with my own topic. You know, as you've been sharing, this really has gotten my wheels turning about the collaborative processes in the world of intangible cultural heritage now.

Sara Bogomolny 6:16

Yes, okay, I have so many questions about this. Tell me, who are the key collaborators in these processes? Are the cultures that hold the ICH assets, the ones typically pursuing the preservation of their own culture? Or is there a centralized organization or movement that's reaching out to these communities to introduce the concept of ICH and then connecting them with the resources to embark on the preservation? I'm so curious.

Shun-Sho Carmack 6:45

There are a lot of questions in there, but I'll try to unpack and answer them for you. So intangible cultural heritage gets its main support through the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or better known simply as UNESCO. In 2003, UNESCO created its convention for safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage, which laid out what ICH is and encouraged the continued development of safeguarding practices for elements through identification, practice, and varying techniques for sharing the subject matter communally. This convention also stated that at the core of the work, safeguarding and preservation needed to be a collaborative effort from identifying an element to actually working with the element. Everything needs to be approved by the community itself. If the hosting community didn't give permission or were not included in the process of safeguarding an element, nothing should move forward from there. Beyond this, knowing the other actors in the collaborative process can get pretty fuzzy. Although 180 countries have adopted this convention, many other countries are engaging in efforts independently, including the United States. So although the US has not adopted this convention, the government partners on several projects through partners such as the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress. Now, apart from government efforts, this work is also being conducted by non-government entities and global, national, regional, and local projects. For example, the Summer Institute of Linguistics International is a faith-based nonprofit housed in Texas that sends linguists and cultural specialists around the globe, striving to locate and work with native speakers of disappearing languages, to help them preserve their cultures and their languages. So we're seeing a lot of different actors in the field working with communities throughout the world, which means that the collaborative process is often complicated, disjointed, and difficult to track. The collaborative aspect of ICH work is suffering because it can't figure out how to streamline the process.

Sara Bogomolny 8:59

So in performing our research, we have come across Fractured Atlas, which is a really awesome organization based in New York City that provides fundraising and educational tools to artists. In addition to their main services, they also run a blog where Nina Berman and her colleagues have shared some really fascinating thoughts about creating a distributed working environment, and how to nurture teamwork when your key players aren't all in a shared physical space. Their example is a really salient case study of how to structure hybrid or remote working teams.

Shun-Sho Carmack 9:33

One of the things I found most interesting about their reflections on switching into a hybrid model was the reminder that this switch recontextualizes everyone's relationship to their jobs and to their co-workers. In their transition to a hybrid work model. Fractured Atlas had different teams and individuals working at different points along the spectrum of remote work. The abstractness of the concepts of teams and the loss of day-to-day visual reminders of different teams, coworkers’ projects, and their interconnectivity posed real challenges, and they had to focus on maintaining a cohesive company culture in a new hybrid environment. Nina Berman specifically refers to the difficulty of keeping up a shared purpose and the cohesive company culture.

Sara Bogomolny 10:21

But they've also found some great successes and boiled them down to six quick tips, which I'll share with you now. Number one, approach this work with intentionality. Number two, make expectations clear. Three, have set in office days, when that's relevant to you and your team. Four, don't make it a perk for higher level staff. Number five, ask what the staff wants and needs. And finally, number six, except that it's a process. And what these tips really do is lay the foundation for consent in collaboration and distributed work and for ethical collaboration across teams that are not working face to face - which is where I'd love to focus the next part of our conversation.

Shun-Sho Carmack 11:08

So there are a host of folks who study teamwork and collaboration who argue that teamwork advances productivity, and collaborator well-being. So much so, that some researchers are arguing that teamwork is basically a biological imperative of being human. It's inescapably coded into who and what we are as people. However, not everyone is completely on board with that estimation. Other researchers are pretty opposed to that view and challenge that way of seeing teamwork. Graham Sewell is one such researcher, a professor at the University of Melbourne, and a specialist in management and marketing. Sewell goes so far as to assert that tying our success as a team member to our biology means that when we show up as a poor team member, we are betraying our true or natural selves.

Sara Bogomolny 11:58

Okay, that's a little heavy.

Shun-Sho Carmack 12:01

Yeah, incredibly, so it makes the concept of teamwork even more complicated when it becomes a question of violating innate biological codes, versus just someone who's having a really bad day.

Sara Bogomolny 12:13

Personally, I'm not sure it matters which party is correct, but I do think the existence of the debate demonstrates the importance of ethically constructed frameworks for collaboration. It speaks to the fact that no one collaborator is showing up in a vacuum solely to be identified by their professional title or the role they play on the team. Especially when there are so many facets to our identities and of our true and natural selves. Professional spaces are only just learning how to acknowledge and respect all that we bring to the table.

Shun-Sho Carmack 12:46

One aspect of that which has been highlighted pretty dramatically during the COVID pandemic is the spectrum of psychological and physical needs that people have in order to feel safe coming into an office or workspace. Nina Berman wrote about how to orchestrate an ethical reopening in a post COVID world and highlighted just how much has changed since March 2020. In terms of our perceptions of safety, in the pre-pandemic workplace, safety felt largely like an individual consideration for many people. Today, more of us, in the light of the multitudes of cultural shifts we experienced in 2020 and that have continued (even as we're heading towards the end of 2021) now see that safety is a shared responsibility. A manager or team leader can't make unilateral decisions about who's working from where, and when, to the degree that was accepted pre-pandemic. That means that offering digital and remote methods for working together is crucial if teams and organizations want to maintain effectiveness and productivity.

Sara Bogomolny 13:50

Another thing that resonates with me is that while the switch to remote work during the pandemic was rapid and therefore not necessarily a carefully calculated strategy, shaping remote work, the team dynamics, the tools that you use, et cetera, is a fantastic opportunity to set new group standards and ideals.

Shun-Sho Carmack 14:10

Nicola Carpenter, also at Fractured Atlas says that tools can alter our behaviors, so make sure that the tool will support you in building the organization you want to build. Sarah, I know that you're looking a lot at the tools that theater practitioners are using to facilitate collaboration with production teams. What should these artists be considering as they're evaluating and choosing tools?

Sara Bogomolny 14:35

I put these tools into four different categories: document storage, email alternatives for general communication, project management, and brainstorming. There are certainly well known technologies that are pretty widely used in for-profit business contexts, and may even be used in the management offices of arts organizations. My research seeks to determine whether these platforms and tools have trickled into production processes, and whether that has been accelerated by the pandemic. In terms of choosing specific platforms, I think that the best tool is one that people are actually going to use. It doesn't matter if a team or a theater invests in a super fancy new technology that will revolutionize the collaboration process, if the team members aren't open to learning and integrating this new thing into their workflow. So just like we discussed how managers can't make unilateral decisions about how people show up for work in the same ways that we accepted pre-COVID, there's also an element of consent to consider in implementing new tools and technologies. McKinsey, which is the famous consulting firm that does a lot of wonderful research on business practices. They said in a recent report, that the tools themselves can help democratize collaboration and teamwork processes by breaking down some of the hierarchies that we see. So I'll also add that it's probably important that the process of adding these technologies also be a democratic one. In thinking about building the organization we want to build though. A more technologically savvy theatrical production process that allows people to work flexibly and remotely, is definitely an interesting and overall positive step for the theatre community and the diversity of people that we can then welcome onto our teams. So while collaborators may initially balk at the learning curve, I wager that theaters would benefit from taking the time to introduce these tools and onboard their key collaborators. Shun-Sho, as you think about these internationally distributed teams of people working to preserve ICH assets. What do you think are some of the primary ethical considerations for building the organization you want to build in that context? And how does technology play a role in that?

Shun-Sho Carmack 16:49

I think the primary ethical consideration goes back to the idea of power and hierarchy. And making sure that everyone involved in the process gets an equal say in how things are done. The questions I'd have for the organizations who are working with the communities is how much is the hosting community getting to determine what is being safeguarded, and how that work is being accomplished. We've talked about the cultural shifts that have occurred in our micro communities, such as our workplaces, our schools, over the past couple of years. But it's important to remember that this becomes a multifaceted issue when we're working with communities that span the globe. Of course, there are differences in language, customs and values. But there's also an issue of technology and how it's being shared and accessed. As more infrastructure is built for shared, remote workplace environments, the potential for higher equality among collaborators grows. But there's also a higher potential for inequality, particularly when working in communities without resources to engage with partners on technological platforms. Despite this, creating a truly collaborative team, safeguarding and preserving ICH assets could be so much easier in this digital environment. For me, it really centers on intentionally selecting and using the tools in equitable ways.

Sara Bogomolny 18:11

Something that has been lingering in my mind throughout our conversation has been the idea of structures and their impact on collaborative work. There's this great article, Nina Berman wrote again, on Fractured Atlas blog about how a lot of existing structures are seen as somewhat necessary evils. They help us accomplish tasks and drive productivity, but they can also force us to adhere to oppressive systems of hierarchy, classism, patriarchy, and racism. Groups that are unstructured, lack direction, but groups with too much structure are rigid and often disconnected from their original purposes. But the article goes on to say it doesn't have to be an either-or situation. The answer could lie in creating better structures that simultaneously emphasize equally diffused and distributed power and autonomy with delegated rotated and allocated tasks amongst team members. And it all happens under a shared understanding of expectations guidelines and vision for the future.

Shun-Sho Carmack 19:15

Collaboration has changed as we've adapted to and created remote and hybrid workspaces. And while this kind of distributed work certainly has its pros and cons, it's also a pretty spectacular opportunity to think deeply about how we are shaping our collaborative processes and our working relationships to each other, and the projects at hand.

Sara Bogomolny 19:36

Yes, the pause and the breath we've taken during the pandemic has given us the space to re-evaluate, or maybe even evaluate for the first time why our processes work the way they do, and question whether, quote-unquote, the way things have always been done, are worth upholding in this new landscape. Thanks for spending time thinking about collaboration with us. I'm Sarah Bogomolny.

Shun-Sho Carmack 20:03

And I'm Shun-Sho Carmack. We hope that wherever your collaborations take you, it's in new, safe and exciting places.

Sara Bogomolny 20:17

Music for this episode was written by Jason Shah and is available at audionautix.com. That's audionautix.com

Victoria Sprowls 20:34

Thanks for listening to the Tech in the Arts podcast. Let us know what you thought by visiting our website: amt-lab.org. That’s A-M-T dash L-A-B .org. Or, you can email us at amtlabcmu@gmail.com. You can also follow us on Twitter @Tech in the Arts, or on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn at Arts Management and Technology Lab. Thanks again for tuning in. If you found this episode, informative, educational, or inspirational - then send this to another arts aficionado in your life. We'll see you for the next episode.