WinkiPod is Go!

Geoff Brown and I have been working behind the scenes to get our podcast website WinkiPod up and running. Well, Geoff’s been working behind the scenes while I’ve been providing moral support! Today we recorded our first podcast and HERE IT IS! Go on, go check it out.

About collaborating, some musings and some thanks

Warning: The following is a bit of a ramble through my mind, a jumble of thoughts. So beware of a lack of coherence. Don’t say I didn’t warn you! It’s also inspired by that business marker, the end of the financial year, when next Tuesday everything goes back to zero.

I’ve been having some interesting thoughts about collaborating and how to do business. I do this as I sit at my desk covered in receipts and bills waiting attention. The radio is on in the background, examples of potential new letterhead and business cards waiting for a decision sit ignored, scribblings about flights from Melbourne to Lusaka are lost amongst telephone messages and the new tax rates for 08/09. My bags from the New Zealand trip lay on the floor, still to be unpacked, two half drunk cups of coffee are next to my mouse pad and the heater is on keeping the winter chill out. It rained earlier and was windy. Now it’s sunny and the ocean, which I can see out of the window on my left, is a deep, deep blue. I can also see lots of little birds, black and yellow New Holland Honeyeaters, olive White-naped Honeyeaters, Superb Blue Wrens and Silver Eyes, coming into the bird bath which is also bathed sunshine. Dozens of them sit of the edge of the bird bath and chatter incessantly as they compete for time to splash about in the water.

I quite like working alone. No, that’s not quite true. I quite like only being responsible for me. I like working with others. Not everyone. And I’m very sure that not everyone would want to work with me! When the synergy is there though it’s magic. And it’s that magic that keeps me coming back for more: with Anne, we seem to be able to read each other’s minds when working together, and it’s always full of laughs and learning; with Stephen, complementary skills and knowing each other’s strengths – and the good-humoured way he adapts to my last minute changes and whacky ideas; Geoff – who brings a freshness and aliveness and quick mind that sparks my own, sometimes sluggish mind into action; Brian – who is so opposite to me in so many ways but has such a depth of insight that I’m in awe; Antony – with whom I’m always just a little bit afraid (usually of what I might discover about myself) and who is so, so skillful with the action methods that he uses; Andrea – such a gorgeous person, so clever, so talented.

These are the people I actively collaborate with. Then there’s all my ‘silent’ partners – the people who inspire me, some of whom I’ve met, some not yet. Many of them are here on the web – speakers at TED, bloggers (see them over there on the left), the voices I listen to on podcasts who become familiar in some ways, yet remain strangers in others, and people that I’ve met through conferences, or through working with them, or travelling in remote places.

And then there’s the people who just make life easier – accountants and book-keepers, house cleaners and helpful shop-keepers who find what I need or give me advice, 14 year-olds who can fix my computer problems probably while playing the latest electronic game on the side, the postie who sorts the mail and puts it into my very own box. 

And then there’s the people who really make life worth living – friends and lovers and family. And pets – Comet, now alone since Radar died.

This all amounts to a way of working and being that suits me just fine – something that I never dreamt would be. Could never have imagined. Which brings me to imagining our futures. Call it what you will – any sort of long-term planning, strategic or otherwise, visioning, futuring – it’s all nonsense to me. I can’t imagine a future vastly different to the one I’m now living in – maybe it’s a limit of my imagination. What I can do is put hopes out into the universe and be present to the realisation of those hopes. Open to opportunities. Many years ago I decided that I wanted to work overseas – just for short stints – and eventually that happened. I had my first break working in Laos. It wasn’t planned. Someone else wasn’t available. I was. I never had a business plan. I’m not ambitious enough to ‘grow the business’ – I get enough work, I enjoy what I do (mostly) and I get to take time out when I want to. I have met, and continue to meet amazing people. I used to say that I did no marketing. I now see that’s not true. I did no traditional marketing. What I’ve always done is shown up. In person, and these days, electronically as well. Showing up and being present are under-rated, I reckon. Thanks to my improv buddies I’ve learnt a lot about that too.

I was just going to write ‘I wish I could draw’. What I really mean is, ‘I wish I had the patience and willpower to unearth, unlock, release my drawing muscles’. In the meantime I need to use words to express what I’m feeling.

So what hopes are currently out there in the universe waiting for the planets to align (sorry ;-)? That would be cheating, wouldn’t it? I’ll let you know when they are realised – because, on past experience, I know they will be. Thanks for playing YOUR part, knowingly or unknowingly. And one hope I will reveal – that I can repay YOU.

Happy End-of-the-Financial-Year

Imagination and knowing

 This picture reminds me to take time out – to reflect and wonder at the world. And to listen to TED Podcasts like this one by Wade Davis.

Inspiration from odd places

Did I mention that I’d started a new business? Regular readers will know about Facilitating With Confidence – a facilitation training program that my friend Anne Pattillo and I have developed that goes beyond processes. We indulge our passion for improv theatre, and for action methods. We help our participants find their own platform for facilitating, we share some tried and true approaches and most importantly, we work on presence. being able to respond to what’s actually happening, here and now; being present for the people we’re with. Most important of all – we surprise ourselves with our discoveries, and the sharing with those who are learning with us. Our journeys started well before those whom we’re training, but that doesn’t mean we’ve reached the end. Goodness me – I have more questions now than ever before!

We’re supplementing the face-to-face work with on-line activities. Comments, questions, podcasts and videos. Here’s three we watched and then asked the question “what can we learn about facilitating from these videos?” Here’s what our clever and insightful participants came up with. 

FROZEN GRAND CENTRAL 

• Very mundane situations can become wondrous 

• Simple instructions can be effective 

• You can’t always be sure what people’s responses may be 

• Adults can be intrigued by the simplest of things 

• Taking away normality can really make people think 

• A bit of fun is good – doesn’t have to be serious all the time 

• Clear directions 

• Coordination is good 

• Give time to things – explanations and understanding will come in good time 

• Think of creative ways to make an impression 

• Do the unexpected 

• Take risks 

MOON-WALKING BEAR 

• Be prepared to focus on all elements of the facilitation activity 

• Be prepared for the un expected to happen 

• Unless you are present, opportunities may be overlooked 

• Allow for some fun and silliness – it can help to demonstrate point/enhance learning 

• Focusing on one aspect means neglecting others – so need to carefully prioritise 

• Having an independent record can be critical for noticing important stuff 

• It can be fantastic learning feedback (also in psychodrama) 

• Awareness of people’s habits 

• Something surprising/kooky can stick in the memory and make a point 

• Using your peripheral vision is a MUST! 

BUILDING STONEHENGE

Hat tip to Chris Corrigan’s Phoric

• Where there is a will, there is a way 

• Simplistic, logical thinking about a task 

• Things should be given adequate time – be realistic about what needs to be done to achieve the 

outcome 

• Mistakes/mishaps will occur – it’s part of learning and development – it’s OK 

• Processes build on each other – think through the processes that logically and creatively lead to 

the desired outcome 

• Think outside the square – just because others haven’t done it before doesn’t mean you can’t 

find an innovative (or simplistic) way to do it 

• The right lever can move anything – one person can do heaps 

• Sometimes in the preparation of a facilitation process you may feel like the Lone Ranger – not 

necessarily a bad thing… 

• One person can use the resources around them 

And another hat tip to Rob Paterson & Johnnie Moore’s Phoric: Desert Island YouTube for inspiring (albeit subconsciously) this approach.

The power of teamwork

An update on the treeplanting as described in my previous post:

In 4 hours 45 min (lunch hour removed) we planted, set up a mat and guard and watered 872 trees/shrubs.

That’s 184 trees per hour or 3 trees per minute!

Who says teamwork is dead? 

Before and After

1000 native trees

3000 bamboo stakes

1000 plastic guards

1000 weed mats

15 hamilton tree planters

4 hammers

one (very long) hose

14 friends

two kids

two dogs

six hours

and look what we did…

Unexpected learning

All this talk about web-based tools, you’d never know that my most significant learning this week came from a very concrete, face-to-face action method called Memory Lane.

My friend and colleague, Antony Williams, came to our Facilitating With Confidence course to introduce our trainees to action methods, being present and being in the moment. He used Memory Lane – an action method where an individual (or couple, or work team) can step out a history line.

I was the protagonist in a demonstration where we visited my educational history. It’s amazing how easy it is to feel real emotions when doing something as straightforward as an educational history, stepping from a post-high school diploma to a part-time degree and then a distance-learning masters. In between were some significant events, and the whole process brought them vividly alive. We practiced Memory Lane in pairs, sharing the houses we had lived in, experiencing what it’s like to facilitate the process and be the facilitated.

And here’s where the great Ah-ha! moment occurred. We’d struggled with finding a way to help new facilitators plan a workshop. On paper it’s just too abstract, too logical, too boring and too hard – and simply not representative of the actual process of designing and staging a workshop. So we tried Memory Lane – using it as a way of imagining what could be, and taking five steps to design an actual workshop that was coming up. It was amazing how palpable feelings were. When I did it I could take a step saying I’d do a particular activity next and recognise straight away that it just didn’t FEEL right – something else was needed first. So I could go back and insert a new step and see how that felt. At the end of the Memory Lane I could turn around and look at the completed ‘design’ and see where I felt comfortable and where the danger spots might be. And I wasn’t looking at anything except a piece of carpet in a hotel conference room. There was no plan written there, but I could ‘see’ all of it – and today I can still remember it. Can you tell I’m excited?

We also used it in another way too. After demonstrating a facilitation process that incorporated a number of steps, we asked participants to recall the process by doing a Memory Lane. I’ll be really interested to find out how well they remember those steps (and hence the process) by debriefing this way rather than a more traditional approach.

Some of my favourite web tools and links

Following today’s web tools discussion – here’s a few useful links… (just click on anything that is underlined to go to that link)

The Commoncraft videos – great short videos (using a whiteboard and paper format called Paperworks) that explain different aspects of the web. These guys are great – a husband and wife team based in Seattle who make these videos in their basement! Check these ones out:

Wikis in Plain English 

Blogs in Plain English

Twitter in Plain English

TED Videos. Great for inspiration. Each one only lasts 20 minutes, and it’s an opportunity to hear some great speakers on all sorts of topics. If you know how to (I use trial and error) you can download the audio onto your iPod and listen while walking, cycling, at the gym etc. Try these for starters, or just jump straight in.

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight

Nancy White’s blog is choc full of ideas about on-line facilitation, uses of wiki’s and other approaches for collaboration, and visual facilitation to boot. 

Meeting Wizard is a great tool for organising a meeting between a number of people. It sends each person you want to invite an email with a link to a web page where they can indicate availability or not, then identifies the best time for the most number of people. Brilliant!

Matt Moore’s podcast with Nancy White and co about blended facilitation – that means blending face-to-face facilitation and on-line approaches.

And while we’re on podcasts – a plug for WinkiPod – where Geoff Brown and I play with podcasting.

Oh, I nearly forgot iStockphoto – a great place to source inexpensive and high-quality images to use on your blog, for presentations etc.

On-Line Learning

Thanks to Dave Riddell for the heads-up on this on-line learning course about new media. Ideal, seeing as I’ll be talking about web tools for facilitators later on this morning.

PS – This and the last post were both inspired via my Twitter feed. If blogging seems too daunting, why not try micro-blogging with Twitter?

We all need more of this

Garr Reynolds, of Presentation Zen fame says this. Read the full interview here.

Work is not always about “getting things done” or always having something to show for it at that moment. Creative thinking, for example, requires alone time, solitude, and even thinking about a problem by not forcing it — that is, by not thinking about it. So yes, under a palm tree in Hawaii or while going for a ride on my mountain bike around Osaka bay is working. That time is important and necessary and is all part of the process.

I used to worry about “procrastinating” or “being lazy” because, for example, I spent the day alone on a long bike ride in the mountains thinking about the problem but while having a good time and not sitting inside my home office at my Mac. But it is my wife — a Japanese designer trained in the USA — who told me that that time away from the office and the computer when it seems like I am not “working” is all part of the creative process, it is part of the work. I needed, she said, to stop feeling guilty and worrying. It’s funny that I needed “permission” to just do what comes naturally: to play.

Yes, work requires dedication and grinding it out. It’s hard. But healthy play makes for better work in the end, it is not wasting time. So “doing nothing” while sitting in a coffee shop or strolling alone on the beach is not wasting time, it is the best use of the time at that moment. It’s all part of the process. So, sitting in a boring meeting? Yes, that is wasting time. Sitting under a palm tree with a note pad…what could be a better use of time?