The joint effort is more than the sum of individual
contributions. You said it. I said it.
But this doesn’t exist in the exact science. It doesn’t exist in set theory, to
be exact. 100 Euro plus 100 Euro still make 200 Euro, not 250 Euro.
I can spend 100 Euro and all my time on health and you spend 100 Euro and all
your time on education, and we both get some health and some education. We can
spend all 200 Euro and all our time on health, but then we don’t get education.
From the point of view of a health official, the joint programme makes a lot of
sense. The education guy, and the school-age children, would be disappointed.
But even if we don’t care about their disappointment, we still need to be
careful with our money, and understand where synergies end[1] and
overlap begins.
[1] Synergy: “a mutually advantageous conjunction of distinct (!) elements”.
(3 October 2003)
previous
next