coherence ::

1. the quality or state of cohering: as

a : a systematic or logical connection or consistency

b : integration of diverse elements, relationships, or values

2. the property of being coherent <a plan that lacks coherence>

How can we best surface our gifts and strengths?

How can we engage in meaningful work that motivates us through the elements of autonomy, mastery and purpose?

How do we amplify the strengths of our peers and cocreators?

How do we appreciate those strengths and align with them in order to build dynamic, high-performance, and highly coherent work teams?

As I’m participating in projects more and more with people across disciplines and boundaries, we’re experimenting with new ways to ask and answer these questions.

In December I ran a Fusion event in California with David Hodgson, Kirstin Ohm, and Adam Scislowicz. When the even was done, David suggested an exercise for us to show our gratitude and appreciate for the things we noticed as the inherent talents of the others.

We distributed 5 points per person in any combination to rank the person’s “superpowers” (performance, attitude, awareness, etc). We logged these responses into a google spreadsheet with the following columns:

[person giving] / [personal receiving] / [experience points] / [gifts acknowledged] / [assessment]

Then we hopped on a google hangout and shared our thoughts with each other and gave specific examples about when we saw each person’s gifts shine.

A few great things came of this process.

For one, it was fun. I’d never been challenged before to identify people’s natural gifts in this way — usually it’s just the opposite – you’re asked to examine the “failures” and figure out “what went wrong.” There were things that didn’t go as planned during the event, but starting our session with appreciation for each others’ efforts created a safe environment for being open and honest. We were then able to honestly discuss the things that played out suboptimally, and then described scenarios for how we could handle that type of situation more effectively in the future.

Secondly, it helped me to better understand our ‘tribe dynamics’ – how our personalities and styles can actually amplify the overall performance of the team, if acknowledged and understood coherently.

And lastly, it taught me more about myself. I’m finding it very interesting to learn that the way I see myself, or the things I think I bring to the table, are not always the things that others acknowledge or appreciate in me. Some of the acknowledgements i was given in this exercise were “story weaving,” “emergent facilitation,” and “completion,” all of which I would probably rate myself as a novice or apprentice. And yet these were the hidden gems that they could see were waiting to be polished up and brought forth.

I plan to continue participating in this type of process, not just on co-facilitated events or projects, but on a regular basis as I’m interacting with the people in my learning community. Participating in these feedback loops and productive discussions accelerates all of our learning. We get clarity on who we really are and where we excel, receive continuous feedback from trusted peers and mentors, and generally get a better understanding of ourselves, each other, and the dynamics between them.

In the larger context of the creative economy that we’re bootstrapping, these kinds of practices seem to be part of the foundational structure that will build trust and cultivate the kind of culture that is favorable for the kinds of change we want to see in the world.

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further exploring:

The Gabriel Institute – role-based assessments / organizational dynamics / technology of teaming

Drive – Daniel Pink

I just got back from a great trip to Burlington, VT, where I touched base with Amy Kirschner of the Vermont Sustainable Exchange. She and cocreator Kyra Pinchiera have been working on creating an inquiry process to assist people in making ideas happen.

Many of us have grand visions of the future, but to be able to tranform those into a “minimum viable product” – something tangible and actionable – can be a bit of an art.

She showed me her sketches for taking idea to action, and i made them into a little graphic. Enjoy!

As we’re building out human-centered next-gen profiles for the Collaboratory, we wanted an intimate and creative way for people to get to know each other.

Enter: the Heartsong Project.

(thanks lauren higgins for bringing up the term “heartsong” on our brainstorm call.)

The idea is pretty simple and straightforward:

Record a 1-3 minute video of you describing your heartsong.

What’s a Heartsong?

This is your personal “tune.”

Who are you?

What passion drives your actions?

What makes your heart sing?

Everyone has beautiful visions inside of themselves, and as we bring those to the surface and share them with each other, the likelihood of them becoming real amplifies.

Let’s manifest!

The above is a sample I made this morning. It took me a few hours total. I’m on an iMac. I recorded in photobooth and edited in iMovie.

I also purchased the domain “heartsongproject.cc”

I’d like this to be the 2nd project of Open Foresight.

(Open Foresight is a series of models and methodologies we’re developing for co-creative visions of the future. It combines techniques from futures studies together with design and media production. The first prototype was the Future of Facebook video series. The Heartsong Project is about developing personal foresight – understanding your own deep desires and aims and clarifying them. This is the first step to developing plans of action towards achieving them.)

I don’t have the bandwidth to develop out the website at the moment, but would be happy to do a wireframe or mockup with ideas for anyone who would like to run with it. (we can co-create it in the Collaboratory!)

We’re already creating our Heartsongs and uploading them to youtube.

All content we create for Open Foresight projects is being licensed Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 (cc by-SA 3.0), meaning we’re making it available to be reused, remixed, and built upon by others.

Can’t wait to hear your heartsongs!!!

I’ve been having a lot of fun the past few weeks fleshing out our next-gen profiles for the Collaboratory.

One of the things I think is critical for any sufficiently advanced social network is a way for us to actually express who we are as human beings – emotion, passion, intent, inherent gifts, and the like.

The problem with Facebook and LinkedIn is they predefine the scope of what it means to be human.

Either you’re this or that. This religious affiliation, this political view, this relationship status, this sex, and so forth.

And that’s all fine for those who find comfort in the rigidity of those labels.

But for those who wish to be untethered from that way of thinking, so that we can expand ourselves into expressing fuller human capacity, it’s a bit constraining.

So we’re working on allowing people to show who they are and what they’re about from a deeper, more meaningful level.

To that end, I’ve been playing with the new hive to do mockups (disclaimer – the new hive is for generally for you to “express yourself,” not do wireframes, so it’s no Illustrator – but for a dead simple tool that a child could start using within minutes, it’s perfect.). The above image is just v1 of what I’ve come up with, but I think I’m leaning towards everyone being able to make their profile however they want. We’ll provide a few fields (tribe dynamics, superpowers, strengths, projects, etc), and everyone makes it visually look however they want.

Profiles & Self-Discovery

I’ve spent a lot of time over the years experimenting with various self assessments (8 Tools for Self-Analysis), and thinking about how these assist in the process of self-discovery, clarity, and personal development. We want to provide as many options as we can to engage in this way. We’ve partnered with The Gabriel Institute to provide Role assessments (which we’re calling “tribe dynamics”). Also looking to partner with Gallup for the Strengthsfinder2.0.

Profiles & The Future of Work

And beyond the feel-good reasons of self-discovery, this is about the future of work and value creation too.

As we transition to a society and world of work where people are actually doing things that resonate with their core deeply, I think we need to go through a process of surfacing what we actually care about to help us discern what we’d like to be doing. For many people (at least that I’ve encountered), those deeper desires have been so suppressed over time that the individual isn’t even aware of the connection anymore. <desires for autonomy, mastery, and purpose, as Dan Pink would say>

Learning how to align around projects and opportunities based on our core resonance and values feels a lot more meaningful than chasing the biggest paycheck.

Profiles & Mutual Improvement

And beyond self-discovery and value creation, it comes down to the tie that binds – culture and community.

We’re fostering a community of continuous learning and mutual improvement, and revealing ourselves to each other in this way helps us know how we might assist each other to learn something new (contextual and relevant, or serendipitous) or develop in some meaningful way (help overcome cognitive biases, help heal emotional wounds).

We’re real people. We have these issues, and we’re not embarrassed to acknowledge them, address them, and grow beyond them. It’s’ a step in the direction of cultivating our latent superpowers so that our work teams operate at a level of joy and efficiency that can’t be purchased with any amount of ‘corporate training programs’ or HR ju-ju.

Profiles Part 2

The second part of the user profiles will go more deeply into specific passion projects that are being worked on, whether that’s software development to change the world, or a resilience project to support the local or regional economy.

We’re working on the database that’ll make these projects all searchable so collaborative and co-creative opportunities easily bubble to the surface.

Stay tuned, we’ll be posting updates as they develop!

I’ve decided to add a new theme to the blog – lifehacks.

My attention of late has been focused on how to be more action-oriented, and I realized I’ve been poorly equipped with tools (techniques, processes, frameworks, and technologies) for Getting Shit Done [GSD].

So I have been experimenting with different ways of holding myself accountable and moving towards more integrity in thought :: word :: action.

I’m having success with a Morning Junto model, so I’d like to share how it’s working: Continue reading →

Thanks to everyone who participated and responded to the 4 question survey for the Future of Facebook Project. Below are your results! We’ll be integrating these responses with the ones given by the experts for our final video and written report.

In the ‘other’ category, responses included: personal data ownership, trustworthiness/transparency, boredom/fatigue. Continue reading →