Monday, March 19, 2007

debriefing imagestreams

I have found debriefing to be extremely valuable. And insights continue to fall into place sometimes years after an imagestream.

I always like to tape the session on my digital recorder (mp3 player) and then type up the notes.

I then like to clean the notes up and publish on my website.

Sometimes I need to read them a few times to “get” what the insight is.

But that it just the beginning.

Here is my list of questions I ask myself. And it is good practice to ask these methodically, and keep them in your notebook for future reference.

1) List everything that surprised you

2) Draw diagrams and write descriptions of inventions you found

3) Try to sketch “realia” e.g. information posters, signs, powerpoints – make models maybe

4) List what is to be verified and go do it.

5) What could you use TODAY

6) What questions remain

7) Notes about the methodology itself – if I can improve it for next time, what I learned.

8) Other musings, sidebands etc.

My last imagestream experiment was to find a way to use conventional money to promote sustainable development. It became “units of trust”.

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Our inappropriate culture

There is a whole debate about individualism. About how we give up parts of ourselves to fit in to the group.

See Dave Pollards Blog

This thing about adapting to the group is of course about survival - the group needs to function as a whole to survive. The best example in the mammal world are killer whales. they have developed "cultures" to be able to live where they do eg some living off seals, some eating small fishes, some hunting tuna. In these cases - playfulness adn experimentation, communication and group learning are all at the base of this culture development. so you could say that the difference, the play, the experimentation is important to learn new things - like when whales learned to follow fishing boats (equipped with sonar and after their food) and get there first. On the other hand learnign to act like a group is essential for survival.

In Brave new world and Brave new world revisited Aldous Huxley says the development of man moving to cities, being surrounded by a vast interconnecting system of technical infrastructure, was driving a development, albeit coming from the good purpose of ORDER, to turn people into insects Insects all act in exactly the same way and if they do not they get killed by the others. He sees civilisation as a giant termite stack of unhappy people.

So I agree with you Dave, it IS an important subject - it is not oil peaking or community gardens that will see manking through the next decade but development of a culture appropriate to
  • the earth we live on
  • our bodies in terms of organisms
  • the reason we are here
 
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