Lessons from this week February 12, 2010

This has been our second week together as team 15 and 15plus.  It is cool to see how we are merging together and are starting to operate as one organization.

This week we spent some time with Uffe Elbeak, the founder of the school, prototyped how we want to work together in Shanghai with Kristin and Fanny (former KPs and process leaders), and had a self organizing day.  Some learning and insights below:

KP started with a question: What kind of education should we have had  to do the the things we are doing now?

At KP, we expect that when you’re done, you will create a job.  It could be in an existing institution, or create your own platform.

Be able to argue your values and how you used it.  Be able to show how it is reflected in the project

Purpose of the Outpost: Send students to a place where something is going on that the text books didn’t know about

Visualizing the outcome of a project helps to connect to the values you want represented.  Sharing them and getting inspiration from others makes it even stronger.

Groups cannot just jump to a solution if they are not ready.  Prototyping is good, but sometimes it can be easier if clarification of purpose comes first.

Differentiate between goals and tasks when multi-tasking.  Break things down into contexts then projects and how those projects fit into the larger context.

It feels good to sit together and get clarity and overview even if it looks from the outside that we didn’t do anything.

The smallest things can make me shift from feeling bad to good and the other way around.  Remember that feeling good will find its way back, just be patient.

I am in the middle of understanding how organizations set themselves up and it’s fascinating

Creating Desired Futures-Interconnectedness February 7, 2010

Spent my day hungover from the 8000 Haiti party last night, but managed to read a few articles in between naps.  One that got its hooks into me was an interesting article by Peter Senge about creating desired futures.  In it he sums up Robert Fritz, an organizational consultant who gives three principles on how to create desired outcomes in organizations:

1)  Creating is different from problem solving

“In problem solving we seek to make something we do not like go away. In creating, we seek to make what we truly care about exist.”  Organizations do both.  If you wonder which you are enacting most ask the questions like what are we accomplishing today? and what are we trying to create?

Problem solving becomes the busywork of organizations in which people have forgotten their purpose and vision.

2)  The creative process is animated by the gap between vision and reality

This creative tension makes us take action on bringing what we want to create into reality.  It can also bring emotional tension which we may want to avoid.  To deal with it and seek ways around it, people often reduce the vision or not tell the truth about the current reality.  Compromise and Denial

“But to the extent that we misrepresent current reality, we lose the capacity to change that reality. The energy of the creative process is released not just by holding true to a vision, but also by telling the truth about what is.”

3)  Understanding your constraints frees you to create

“As we go forward, the constraints that can enable creativity will come from appreciating the environmental and social realities of an increasingly interdependent world.  We fail to see these constraints because we fail to see the interdependence out of which they arise.”

Feel where the creativity is in this example:

a product needs to make a certain about of money by a certain time vs  nature produces no waste, so neither should businesses.

http://users.homebase.dk/~pts/CreatingDesiredFutures.pdf

100 initiatives for ‘Better City, Better Life’ February 5, 2010

We spent the day today with Patrick van der Pijl, a Dutch guy who was one of the creators of the Business Model Generation Book.  It was written/contributed to by 470 people from all over the world.  The book is the model for which we will create our book in Shanghai, so we spent the day learning first about how to analyze business models, then how to apply the concept to our task.

What I learned…

It is interesting to analyze a business to generate a model (we used Kaospilot as an example today) because it is nice to break it down into categories and interesting to discuss how the categories are not so easily broken down.

There are so many types of models and the environment changes constantly.

The definition of a business model: Describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value.

9 cornerstones to the business model canvas: customer segments, value proposition, channels, customer relations, revenue stream, key activities, key resources, cost structure, key partners

Insights: learn from everyone, know your clients/customers becaue they are the inspiration to make your business plan better, reasons for writing a book: credibility, marketing, put thoughts together, thought leadership, intellectual property

Backcasting “how”: the method to understand our current state and what actions to be taken now, based on how we design the future state (i.e. promotion, content, publishing, common platform, sponsors, design, digitalization)

Book Recommendation: Bottom of the Pyramid by C.K. Prahalad

PS: No idea how we are going to do this with 50 people, and it’s going to be a great adventure!

Egological February 4, 2010

Our mission, if we choose to accept it:  In addition to smaller group projects, starting a business, a report, and an exam, we as a group are expected to create a book consisting of 100 examples of initiatives that produce a Better City Better Life (theme of the world expo)

And now it starts…we’re going to Shanghai in a month and a half!  Today we spent our first real day together as one team of 50 people going to do multiple projects together for 4 months in China.  Since this blog is about what I’ve learned each day, then I would have to say that today I realized that I enjoy being in a big team.  I feel that our team leaders have our backs and that they are here to bring out the best in us.  It is going to be such a challenge to organize ourselves and figure out how to incorporate our individual goals, team goals, and school goals into only four months.

I feel a bit overwhelmed now and excited.  I really wasn’t into going to Shanghai and still have reservations about the city as well as the expo.  But hell, it is such an amazing opportunity to explore ourselves and develop projects in another country totally different than what any of us have experienced.  I decided to just go in with openness and accept all that comes.

We had Shanghai story night as well…I learned that the massage women are not afraid to get private, it is easy to get a ride if you are hitching, but not to clarify a direction, and staring is most definitely accepted…

ProActive Planning February 3, 2010

Today we learned a tool called proactive planning.  It is meant to take ownership of your situation by seeing everything as a choice.  It is less about defining your life and more how to take actions to bring the future you want to you.  To do this first you have to dig into yourself about who you are and what you feel is important.  The process is to get into pairs and coach each other for three days.  Through individual reflection, coaching, and group reflection the intention is to dig down, find a common thread and set goals to bring want we want into concrete actions.

First we did a SWOT analysis (strength, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) on ourselves.  From that we made a one liner based on the issue mine was: take action in developing an idea that’s really mine and stand for it.  Then we assessed our values and from that defined a goal based on how it would look after we graduate KP.  We then made sub goals and designed a prototype of that goal.  It was hard to connect to the values and how they are expressed as well as defining in detail something that will happen a year and a half from now.  I am happy that I stayed in it and worked out at least something that has actionable steps and happy that we had people leading the process who really stood for us and were there to help.

It occurred to me today that I don’t get deep into things because I am afraid of defining myself by that thing.  It is much easier to hook on to some opportunity to experience it, but not throw myself totally in.  The problem with this is not being satisfied at the end, feeling that I didn’t really learn anything, and having accomplished nothing.  This is not working for me and I now realize that I can be many things and by choosing something, I can start to really explore what it is that I want for myself.

Oh also, some things that resonated with me: you can go slow to go really fast, and leadership is about self awareness because the more you recognize in yourself, the more you recognize in others (knew it, but always good to be reminded)

This blog is my first actionable step in sharing my learnings and aspirations.

Rock and Roll March 13, 2009

Finished with our marketing assignment this week (started over a month ago)!  We did a workshop on clarifying their corporate responsibility policy and others gave a presentation today at the law firm.  

Also, gave my springboard presentation on my business idea (one of the main reasons for coming to the school) last Tuesday.  I feel I definitely need to work on my presentation skills, but people seemed to like the idea and I already have my first clients!  It was a great idea to video tape my presentation, but I find I really don’t like watching myself on video.

Now I am  focused on finishing the KP magazine interviews and helping with editing as well as promotional material such as press releases of our recent activities.

Next week half the team goes to London.  I am staying due to lack of funds and I don’t think everyone needs to go.  It will be nice enjoying the beginnings of spring in Rotterdam!

I will post more on my business idea later and how that is developing.

Permathink February 6, 2009

Not a lot of activities, but lots of insight nuggets this week.  

Last Thursday, Karen came to discuss negotiation theory.  Her topics were (taken directly from her email to us):

What is your maximum and minimum outcome? For example, if the negotiation is about the acquisition of a business, the seller and the buyer (almost) always calculate for themselves what the minimum and maximum sales price should be. When the topic is obtaining services or products, you can express this as a list of need-to-have and nice-to-have.

What is the best-case scenario? And what happens if the worst-case scenario should arise? The former is effectively the total of the need-to-have plus the nice-to-have. The latter tells you how much risk you can take. It also says how much leverage you can exercise over the outcome of the negotiations.

What does the other side want/need?

How do you communicate, to whom, by whom and in what form? Is it useful to involve a third-party?

When/how do you apply pressure? 

How do you “close the deal”?

Ayla gave a workshop Friday morning on how to make stories sticky

Two golden rules: 

1) Golden Glue: Show, don’t tell and 2) Golden Thread: What is your message and goal (like baking a cake, but the trick is knowing which ingredients to apply and in what quantity)

and the recipe…

Be in the present tense, feed all senses, chose surprising/specific details, give examples, use human numbers, and be specific.

This afternoon I enjoyed talking to Charlie upstairs.  He will be facilitating our all-school meeting next Tuesday, so we talked a bit about what I thought needed to be addressed and we talked about one of his workshops on redefining relationships to money.  Basically what I took away was that I should not ask not how to make money and still retain my ideals, but rather ask what can I offer to the world.  The other thing is to know what you’re talking about. 

I interviewed Alex last night for the Ode magazine we will be putting out in March and got a few insights from him as well.  He shared the 4 keys to success that he heard and took for himself.  They are:  learn from everybody, follow no one, look for patterns, work like hell.  I like it because it can be so easily applied and used as a compass.  It was also an interesting distinction he made between working for someone and working with someone.  We chatted for quite a while and I got a lot of other things out of it, but I’m not going to give away the surprise!

Hello world! January 26, 2009

Buhahahaha!  Welcome to my new Blog!!  

So, what has fallen through today?  During our fundraising conversation for the Ode Magazine KP edition, I learned from Pieter a way to get advertisements into a magazine.  He tried cutting out an ad he wanted in his mag. then sent a copy with the ad inserted and an invoice.  It gets the conversation going and he said he got a lot of positive responses from it. I also realized how much time and effort is going to go into this magazine and find myself not at all wanting to write articles for it (still excited about the interviews), but really wanting to make it happen. I learned that going out for lunch is a nice change of scenery, but still doesn’t make us any more productive (though our collective energy was pretty low today anyway after spending the past two full days in Amsterdam).   I learned more about the way Danes speak English from Emma’s friends.  I learned Nich likes working with clay and have decided to set up some playtime for us.  I found out that my roommates and I have a new couchsurfer, who is an exchange student from Kenya will be staying at our place for a month!  And, I re-learned how much I enjoy irish coffee.  

Tomorrow I am roadtripping with Bert, Thijs, Nathaniel and Ragnar in a little Fiat Panda to Denmark.  I kinda added myself at the last minute to the already crowded car, but hey it’ll be a good story at the very least.  Really looking forward to getting the hell out of Rotterdam for a few days (though I was just in the US a couple of weeks ago).  It has just been a while since being on a road trip and these kinds of things are just necessary for my survival.  AND of course I finally get to see the school in Arhus and meet all the people there.  Will post again when I get back!