The Power of Collaboration (and how it Relates to the Pitch Perfect Movies)

Teague Alexy, collaborator extraordinaire.

I admit it. I’ve watched Pitch Perfect 1 and 2 movies. Pitch Perfect 1 helped me escape from a hard time. The humor is truly funny and the singing – well, it just makes you want to walk around performing acapella and dancing all day. I just watched Pitch Perfect 2 and it’s got me musing about the value of collaboration.

In the movie, one of the lead singers of the “Bella” college acapella group ends up collaborating with one of the newest members to create an original song, which not only impresses her music industry boss, it helps the group win the world acapella competition.

This weekend I was privileged to be part of a book launch and music event that was a collaboration between 10 or so local authors. The lead author/singer (Teague Alexy) could have held the event by himself, but he chose to invite others to participate. He even took a chance on someone like me – a local novelist and poet who he just met a week ago (but we share a publisher.)

He held the event in an independent theater in downtown Duluth. Attendance wasn’t huge –a lot of events competed that night – but I’m sure it was larger than if he had been the only one performing. The range of styles of the authors was refreshing and mind-expanding, and I met several new ones.

Earlier in the day I had a conversation with an established author. We talked about how being an author (even one with a hard cover book published by a state university press) doesn’t mean you will rake in the dough. We agreed that the lifestyle is the reward, not the profit.

The night of the performance, I could have been sitting around home banging away at my computer or doing dishes, but instead I joined a bunch of other writers and we shared our work with an audience. The power of collaboration was evident then, and I’ve seen it at operate many times in the past in my day job, when organizations work together to strengthen the reach of their programs and projects.

I truly believe that organizations that try to protect their turf by outcompeting the competition are missing a great opportunity. I just want to say that if you’re an author, don’t be afraid to share the limelight with others – it will be to your advantage. Likewise if you’re an organization.

It takes a village to make a good book launch. And if enjoying Pitch Perfect 1 & 2 is wrong – if collaborating is wrong – I don’t want to be right.