Disruptive facilitation #6 – Lessons from maths
22 May 2010I really enjoyed this talk by Dan Meyer. I was attracted to it because I used to like maths, the problem solving and the patterns – until I got a teacher who sucked all the enthusiasm out of me. I didn’t expect this talk to reveal parallels with disruptive facilitation. At about 2.50 minutes in…
What is a conversation?
13 April 2010There appears to be a resurgence in conversation. I’ve heard this a few times lately: “We need to have a community conversation about this [issue]”. That’s a nice shift from debate. “We need a national debate” has been a cry long heard in Australia on issues ranging from indigenous health to water allocation. Debate presumes…
Do your ideas matter?
12 March 2010Leif Hansen writes this in a newsletter: “Are you like me in feeling that life is just too precious to waste time going to events where we’re talked at as if we’re merely disembodied information-processing machines? I think most of us would rather just download those experiences and listen to them while driving, thank you…
Threads
21 January 2010Two things I’ve been neglecting lately – listening to podcasts and exercising. Lucky for me they’re not incompatible. So today, as I was becoming reacquainted with bikes, treadmills, pulleys and weights, I also turned to my trusty iPod, crammed full of music and podcasts. I had to turn it up really loud so as I…
We are social beings
15 January 2010“Even daydreaming is DOING something!” Yes! Yes, it is. Thanks, David Robinson, for reminding me! And so is talking, about nothing in particular, and everything at once. Who knows what ideas are sparked, what partnerships are forged, what forks in the road are taken? The simple, yet profound, pleasure of conversation is vastly under-rated, I…
A ‘sliding door’ moment
3 January 2010Funny how things turn out. Way back in the 1990s I took some Playback Theatre classes – my intro to improvisation. Then early in the last decade, in 2004, I discovered the Applied Improvisation Network (then known as Improv in Business) on the web and took myself off to their conference in San Francisco. I…
Possibility
22 December 2009Maybe it’s the time of the year – long days, warm evenings, sitting about with a bottle of wine, chatting with good friends. End of the year, beginning of a new one. Is it any wonder that ideas abound? That anything seems possible? I was listening to Sir Ken Robinson on the radio today. He…
A great meeting? Oxymoron?
27 November 2009I took part in a great meeting today. True! And I’m not good at meetings. Usually. They drain my energy, leaving me feeling as though I’ve lost something. Just between you and me, I struggle to be ‘good’ at meetings. I have even been known to exhibit all the behaviours I most dislike in workshop…
Community building with Playback Theatre
23 November 2009We cannot hold a torch to light another’s path without brightening our own. Ben Sweetland My introduction to improvisation was via Playback Theatre. Playback is a form that uses real stories – moments and stories from the audience – as a basis for the enactment. The players use deep listening skills and metaphor to play…
Nick Owen keynote at the improv conference, Portland Oregon
15 November 2009Thought I’d try some live blogging. I’m at the Applied Improv Conference in Portland Oregon with about 100 other people. It’s day two – and Nick is our only keynote. The title of his session is called Touching the Heart: Exploring Core Values through Personal Storytelling. He’s doing some introductory stuff – building rapport with…