Do more minds equal more ideas? When it comes to creative collaboration, it seems an intuitive concept: add voices to a discussion, and watch as creativity flows like water from a hose. But the reality is not so simple. Studies have contested the link between group brainstorming and productivity, even suggesting that increasing the number of contributors in the process actually produces less innovation, in quality and quantity, than an independent mind would generate.
Given this, it’s no wonder that many trail blazers in fields from science to art, have their ‘aha’ moments in isolation. After all, Albert Einstein worked predominantly alone. And you wouldn’t have seen Jane Austen sitting down with her closest friends to pen Sense and Sensibility, would you?
But writing collaborations aren’t a dead end altogether—if you do them right. In this post, we explore how to overcome the misconception in the traditional notions of collaboration—and the best way to harness the creative power of the team.
The disappointments of “writing by committee”
It begins with the drafting phase. A group sits down together—virtually or in person—to create a piece of writing. But rather than accelerating the process, not only does the presence of the group drag out drafting, editing, and publishing, it yields less than desirable results. Fewer ideas circulate, rather than more. And each idea is less innovative than the last.
However, the idea still lingers that if you just got the right combination of people to the table, you would innovate like never before. And when this false conception enters the copywriting world, the end results suffer—producing seemingly endless rounds of revisions and stale, convoluted, uninformed pieces.
Creative production calls for strategy, not just numbers
The intention behind “writing by committee” and “group brainstorming” is commendable: everyone has a different perspective and might bring valuable insight and corrections to the piece that others miss. But it fails in execution because of a misunderstanding about the nature of creativity. To produce compelling writing at scale and across industries, each writer needs space to think hard on its strategic focus and communicate in a cohesive tone.
But brainstorming isn’t the only way to harness the advantages of different perspectives. Teams of creatives can still work together in a way that amplifies their individual strengths and even increases productivity. The key is letting an individual writer draft then giving reviewers an opportunity to add independent feedback in a few limited, focused rounds of review. It’s a system that MarketSmiths has developed and perfected for over a decade as a dynamic content partner.
The MarketSmiths system amplifies the strengths of each writer
To make the most of each individual writer’s talents—while keeping the creative process going at a productive clip—the MarketSmiths system of copywriting collaboration brings together a pool of curated writing talent and implements a scalable system for optimizing strategy, creativity and results:
- Quality writers: By pre-vetting writers on the strength of their craft, strategic thinking, and collaborative abilities—hiring less than 2% of all applicants—MarketSmiths ensures that each person on the team can already be relied upon to think deeply about a piece and draft on-target first drafts.
- Focused rounds of review: A content strategist reviews the piece and edits according to a comprehensive 35+ point quality control system. This ensures that all rounds of review are productive and pinpoint any in-line errors while refining strategic priorities.
- Iterative improvements: The writer makes revisions to the piece once all client stakeholders have weighed in on the piece, aligning all feedback in the revised draft and removing any potential contradictions in the piece’s direction. What’s more, by establishing a finite number of revision rounds before the piece begins, the system avoids the temptation to conduct endless back-and-forths.
By building in time for solitary analysis and structured collaboration, the MarketSmiths copywriting team makes two writers better than one. The result gives individual writers the space to shine, while refining their work through structured rounds of review.
Contact MarketSmiths to inject your content initiatives with strategy and momentum.
