I’d like to extend another Arena invitation. The time has come to get Arena started, and we’re doing this on wednesday april 30th. from 17:00 at Arena on Nørrebrogade 14B.
Arena is an Open Space in the heart of Copenhagen. Arena is shared office space, shared ideas, meeting space and much more. Arena is whatever we make it.
You can read the entire invitation and sign up here.
I’m arranging a seminar on storytelling, visualization and happiness at work. It will take place in the new Arena space in N?rrebrogade 14 B in Copenhagen on friday the 25th of april from 16:00 to 18:00. We’ll start with an introduction to storytelling by Henrik Kristensen, an introduction to visualization by Ole Qvist-S?rensen and I’ll talk briefly about happiness at work. Then we’ll invite everybody to discuss the topics, and how they interrelate.
Participation is free, but you need to sign up by sending me an email at alexander@kjerulf.com.
Last friday I helped Lars Pind run his OpenACS conference. He’d decided to do it as an Open Space meeting, And since he did all of this for free, for the benefit of the OpenACS community, I decided to offer my assistance. It looked like everybody had a great time, and a lot of work certainly got done. You can read all about it here, including the details of what may be the first party ever, to have a piano delivered in the middle of it.
And monday I helped Carsten Ohm arrange a meeting for entrepreneurs in Nørrebro and creative people from IKI. The meeting was a mix of impro theater and Open Space, and it worked beautifully. So chalk up two more points for Open Space. The record still stands: Every Open Space meeting I’ve ever experienced has been a success.
Approtec have it right. They “grew tired of seeing millions of dollars wasted on unsustainable projects that created dependency, competed with the local private sector and crushed entrepreneurial drive”, according to this article. They help instead by enabling local companies to design and manufacture products that make a difference. Their biggest seller so far is the Money Maker, a pedal-driven water pump capable of irrigating two acres of land.
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If ever you’ve doubted that meaning and satisfaction can be found in any job, read this article about a guy whose job it is to clean up dog waste.
The CEO Refresher has an article that suggests ten conversation topics in organizations. This builds on the idea, that conversations are the way that human beings think together, as explored by Margaret Wheatley in Turning to one another.
An excellent way to conduct the discussions, would be circles of conversation. This is a very simple method that promotes deep discussion and deep listening.
If you stumble at mere believability, what are you living for? […] Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe?
– From Life of Pi by Yann Martel
According to this article, there is a very concrete, neurological link between empathy (the ability to identify with other peoples emotions), and the tendency to imitate others.
A team at the University of California has conducted an experiment that used Magnetic Resonanced Imaging (MRI) to measure brain activity in subjects who were either observing other peoples facial expressions or imitating them. The areas of the brain stimulated by these two activities were found to be similar, but when the subjects were mimicking the expressions, there was an increased activity in the parts of the brain responsible for regulating emotions.
From the article: Even if someone has suppressed most of their ability to empathize, Iacoboni says, anyone can become more empathetic. “If you want to become more empathetic, you have to try to look at how people act and move their body and their face. Try to mimic it a little bit, and you will feel internally what other people feel.”
This seems to validate one central tool of NLP, which is to create a rapport between the practitioner and the subject, by mirroring the subject.
Fast Company has a short piece about Traci Fenton, the founder & CEO of World Dynamics. She works as a consultant to promote democracy in organizations, based on a belief that “Never has there been a more important time to consider how organizational democracy can transform corporations AND produce the hard (and soft!) results stockholders, employees and customers are craving.“
I couldn’t agree more. As a founder and former leader of a company that was run democratically, I can safely say that it is a great way to work. I can only hope that Traci is right, when she claims that “Democracy is inevitable. The companies that get this will lead their industry and ultimately build a more democratic world.”
Last night I had the pleasure of meeting Margaret Wheatley (or simply Meg) for the first time. I was part of a circle conversation about leadership, arranged by my good friend Carsten Ohm. Meg is the author of (among others) A simpler way and Turning to one another.
We had a very diverse group in the circle, and as always the discussion was deep and intense. Megs presence gave the discussion an added dimension, because she could use her background and experience to point out the deeper roots of the discussion at a few critical points.
We started from the definition of a leader, that they use in the Berkana Institute, namely that a leader is someone who wants to help (or someone who wants to contribute to positive change).
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