Keith Sawyer outlines in the reading Group Genius: The creative power of collaboration that “group flow is a peak experience, a group performing at its top level of ability”. I guess what Sawyer is really saying is we strive to find our group in order to grasp this “flow” and maintain and nurture a mutual interest. I’ve honestly always hated group work, working with people you don’t always know or like. But i do admit to finding a thrill in these situations when things work out well. When the rare opportunity arises that you have surrounded yourself with similarly interested people whom all are fully invested, things unfolded freely and easily. In my experience, I’ve found it motivating and rewarding when I’ve created something with my production team because we have all worked equally as hard, we’ve all had the same vision and end goal. I feel that in order to create a good team all contributors need be on the same page, and strive for the same goal. Having different means of getting to that end point is always evident, but as long as that end point is mutually recognised. Being apart of a group where the visions of certain members have been varied and not unified is a disheartening experience. Every moment with a group like this make the heinous task of group work soul crushing and elongated.

Saying this I do believe that collaboration and working with others is the key to creating great work. Building connections and meeting new people to work with is very important in the media industry and this in its self can be the means of natural “flow. “Teams can win only by improvising and collaborating, changing constantly in response to the adjustments their opponents are making”. Being apart of a team of Media students is an encouraging experience, that hopefully involves this same improvisation and collaboration, where the opponent is not a physical person, but a means of creating artistic or informative information and material.