In 1966 the jazz saxophonist Wayne Shorter[1] released “The All Seeing Eye.”[2] Shorter set out on a mission to explore “Life and the universe and God” with an amazingly talented crew of contemporaries[3], including Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Grachan Moncur III on trombone, James Spaulding on alto saxophone, Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass, Joe Chambers on drums, and, on one track, Wayne’s brother Alan Shorter on flugelhorn. Ted Panken wrote that the album “[fulfills] John Milton’s admonition to the ‘heavenly muse’ in Paradise Lost to sing the story ‘In the Beginning how the Heav’ns and Earth/Rose out of Chaos.’”
“Chaos” is the album's third track, and perhaps the album’s most well-regarded work. The music “mirrors conflicts, wars, disagreements—the difficulty men have in understanding each other.”[4] The work is a tense, dynamic, hard-bop blend of harmonies, rhythms, and timing; it’s beautiful. and it’s ironic (however, not like rain on your wedding day[5]). For as tense and riven as the work makes one feel. The meticulous orchestration showcases the artists' remarkable control, artistry, and mastery of the form. It’s controlled disarray. It’s structured chaos. It’s a paradox.
This paradoxical “Chaos” has been in my mind as we have explored the world of collaboration at TakeTurns. In our chats with our legal, real estate, accounting, finance, purchasing, and compliance users, a common thread has been just how messy collaborations are when email is used.
Many of our users have asserted that their organizational skills and attention to detail are the only things that stave off disaster when collaborating by email. Significant amounts of time are spent just to manage the logistics. And it’s worth pointing out that all this mind-numbing administrative drudgery is mirrored by the parties on the other side. In short (or perhaps, Shorter), each party has to become either Ron Carter or Joe Chambers (the rhythm section) to keep the collaboration on tempo. But of course, since each party keeps time separately, the collaboration never gets or says in sync[6]. It’s (un)controlled disarray or (separately) structured chaos!
However, all this manual effort implies that collaborations are intrinsically structured. It’s the tool choice that’s driving the pain. It’s worth pointing out that email (and, FWIW, most collaboration tools) lacks formal structure by design—the creators optimized on ease of message exchange. As a result, there are few controls on the process, timing, security, etc. And that lack of structure leads to all that manual effort, increased cognitive load, and anguish the users feel when using email as a collaboration medium.
And that’s why I think we’re bringing something unique to the market with TakeTurns.
With TakeTurns, we’ve made that invisible visible by creating the structure around the collaboration and consolidating all the content. By creating a common place to collaborate, TakeTurns becomes that rhythm section helping control the tempo and mediate the interchanges and transitions.
One of our users commented that our structured exchange reduced confusion—everyone always knew whose turn it was to work. Others have noted the utility of having doc requests that are automatically monitored from start to finish. The fact that folks can quickly browse history and review prior versions without having to search their inbox is a delight for everyone.
All of this is made possible by the fact that we’ve formalized the structure that already exists in an ad-hoc (improvisational?) fashion in collaborations today. It’s that structure that’s obscured beneath all those messages when you use email. And as such, TakeTurns removes the manual effort required to keep a handle on the chaos.
Or, it’s why we say that TakeTurns is collaboration without the chaos.
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[1] Wayne Shorter (1933 - 2023) was often described as “The world's greatest living jazz composer.” He was a saxophonist who, throughout his six-decade career, “experimented with new sounds, textures, and compositional techniques.” Much of his innovation was done in teams, taking risks “in reliable company,” first with Art Blakey, then Miles Davis, and finally as a band leader. Speaking of his approach to playing with others, Shorter said, “It’s a little thing we call trust and faith … To me, the definition of faith is to fear nothing.” It’s proof that innovation and collaboration require trust as a foundation.
[2] Released in 1966, “The All Seeing Eye” was Shorter’s ninth album and “offers nothing if not a master class in hardcore jazz expression.” It’s “the most avant-garde of Shorter’s eleven albums for Blue Note.” and was the “first example of Wayne Shorter exploring metaphysics through music.” The last was probably 2018’s album-cum-comic book “Emanon,” which explored his artistic multiverse. talk about liner notes this album includes a full-on graphic novel!
[3] This group was talented. If we use peer recognition (i.e., Grammys) as a proxy, this ensemble went on to receive forty-six Grammys and Grammy nominations. Wayne Shorter (ten), Freddie Hubbard (one), Grachan Moncur III (nominated), James Spaulding (two), Herbie Hancock (fourteen), Ron Carter (fifteen), Joe Chambers (two), Alan Shorter (nominated). It certainly puts into context Shorter’s comment about “reliable” company.
[4] This is a quote from the liner notes of the album, which were written by Nat Hentoff. On Blue Note Albums of this era, they’re on the back of the cover (not the sleeve). Of course, I’ve only learned this in discussions with our resident vinyl expert Clare.
[5] We’re not the only people to point out how non-ironic rain on your wedding day is. As the NY Times writes: “So, as has been suggested, if Morissette purposely wrote a song called “Ironic” that contained no irony at all, is that ironic? We may be getting closer. Do you know irony when you see it?”
[6] In sync always reminds me of N*Sync. Or perhaps, this is all a ruse for me to write: It’s time to say bye, bye, bye to collaborating via email and give TakeTurns a try! On the by and by, if you are interested in learning more, visit our Help Center or follow us on LinkedIn and YouTube.
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