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  • Tiffany von Emmel 3:59 pm on December 26, 2008 Permalink  

    Dreamfishmas Party 

    The day of prepping for our holiday party was intense. It was going to be a cold rainy night, and 50 people were coming. We were also preparing to go on a dreamfish retreat the next day. And then, the party emerged.

    As I looked around, I felt joy to be a part of such an amazing community of brilliant caring people. And, joy to be at this fabulous party, celebrating together, thanks to the creativity and energy of Paul Loper, Johannes Klose, Dietmar Brinkmann, and Marie-Anne Haour. As people came to the party, Marie-Anne gave each person a paper fish nametag to write two things we love on it. This design was to connect people with the love of one another. And, Dietmar handed out German Gluhwein and hot cider to keep us warm. I certainly felt touched and warmed.

    As people walked into the space, they entered a Treequarium, a dreamfish interactivist invention that Paul and Johannes created to turn inside-out the concept of ‘christmas tree’, to be a relational container rather than a vertical projection. Everyone at the party was given a paper fish, in which we wrote a wish for the new year, and then pinned the fish in the Treequarum.

    Being together at the holiday party, talking about what people love, sipping hot mulled wine, with pouring rain dramatically surrounding us, was a blast. I realized how much I value coming together to celebrate. Thank you so much to everyone who came out to the party! Here are a few pictures, that Johannes took.

     

  • Tiffany von Emmel 2:35 pm on December 25, 2008 Permalink  

    play work 

    Something that I want to have more awareness and support for is the need of my colleagues to balance their life. I have a blind spot when it comes to experiencing the needs of working dads and moms. I don’t have children and my life is anyway unusual, especially as an entrepreneur. (Mimi our dog relaxes, though.) One of the ways we ‘get a life’ is in establishing a culture of flex time and Adult Vacation Policy. That means Dreamfish people choose in their collaborations when they work, where they work, and how much they work.

    For dads and moms, who want to both work around adults and play with their kids, a form of support to check out is for parents — Here is a piece about Cubes and Crayons in Menlo Park, California.

     

  • Tiffany von Emmel 12:27 pm on December 25, 2008 Permalink
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    CoWorking Menu 

    When choosing co-working, imagine a menu with a spectrum of options. You can choose an option that fits the collaboration architecture that is right for you and your project. On the spectrum of choices, imagine the lightest structure on the left and increasing structure as you move to the right: On the far left side, there is co-working for individuals with web-only support. Need more connection to people? Then, check out free co-working in a living room every two weeks. For an example of “Co-work light”, I like the score of Jelly, which Amit Gupta started in NY.
    What is Jelly? from Amit Gupta on Vimeo.

    Want more stability? ….(a step to the right) Try a monthly subscription to co-working with permanent seats in space. Have a startup with need for tight group forming …. (further on the right), get thyself to an incubator “Co-Officing” where few people in a startups or NGO have their own office close to other startups.

    Perhaps, you will start as one person and grow fast? Some spaces are flexible hybrids with space for both individuals, startups and NGOs, like RootSpace in Beirut. And, then at the far right of the spectrum is Organization :-) .

     

  • Tiffany von Emmel 9:33 am on December 24, 2008 Permalink  

    vlog with your egg nog? 

    We are starting a vlog about dreamfishing. I am excited, because video enables the surfacing of qualitative value flows, value that is non-transactional in nature. We can see, interpret, and amplify things like value of increased productivity, learning, motivation, belonging, social impact and green efficiencies. And we are starting at a moment when we are mapping blended value that gets exchanged while people co-work.

    To think of this vlog being in a conversation of vlogs, I would want to jam with Noneck‘s travel vlog to explore open source culture. I like the “connective aesthetic” that he brings forward, particularly in the video of Jelly, the co-working space in NY.

    Video in performance ethnography as a research method can be powerful. I started using video in my doctoral research about social improvisation in Berlin. And then started applying it to consulting on organizational culture change. Individuals and groups are moved as they watch video clips of themselves and reflect together on their choices in the moment and interactions. The reflexivity of video helps people to increase their awareness and conscious use of self in the moment.

    Soon, Marguerite Manteau, Pete Kaminski, Paul Loper, Johannes Klose and and I will have our cameras out with dreamfishers in daily activity. more to follow…

     

  • Tiffany von Emmel 11:09 pm on December 22, 2008 Permalink
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    Coworking for a flourishing world 

    Last week, many dreamfish were on retreat in the redwoods in Sonoma.  We came together to reform Dreamfish and plan our swim in 2009. It wasn’t easy to go a week before the holidays. Hard on loved ones. Still, we needed the time to regroup. In the last four months, we had completely reformed our organization in order to deliver on the founding vision – millions of people globally co-working for a flourishing world.!

    On retreat, we witnessed each other’s life stories and understood how we had each come to dreamfish.   I was blown away by the strength and courage of heart. On the last day, I sat in our leaderly trio with Teddy Zmrhal and Pete Kaminski. I feel grateful to work with these two extraordinary people, whom I learn much from.

    The next day, the room was charged with energy, as people took on the work forward to launch Dreamfish into the world.

    We cooked together, danced, and sat in the evening by the light of our laptops. Yet, it wasn’t all fish and fries. We also challenged each other, and risked into new behavior. We sorted through feelings, and swam into unknowns.

    At retreat, we asked ourselves how we can support social improvisation within Dreamfish as well as for people new to dreamfishing.

    Good planning in a rapidly changing environment during an economic crisis is a practice of improvisation. Knowing how to design and plan for organizational improvisation is even more critical. The structures and processes of hierarchical organizations do not play well in times like these. The social innovators who are nimble, fluid, distributed, with light weight overhead will swim more deftly. To dive deep, most of our folks have chosen to work in a complimentary value exchange,  sharing value that is non-cash, while we research ourselves… just how do we do that.

    Fortunately, we are not for want for brilliant social improvisers, facilitators and planners. Dreamfish is full of the response-ready.

    Thank you for swimming with me…

    Peter Kaminski

    Teddy Zmrhal

    Lisa Abbott

    Marguerite Manteau-Rao

    Maiya Holliday

    Paul Loper

    Linda Crafts

    Dietmar Brinkmann

    Johannes Klose

    Laura Shaffer

     

    • marguerite manteau-rao 12:54 am on December 23, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      Tiffany, love the feel of your new blog. Joining you on this retreat was such a gift. I learned much, made great new friends, and was totally psyched to be a part of planning Dreamfish’s future.

  • Tiffany von Emmel 9:52 pm on December 22, 2008 Permalink  

    Spring to life 

    This is my first post in awhile. I kept my head down in the last months in skunkworks, while Dreamfish has been reforming. And, I have been biting to get blogging again. Hello again!

    My blog’s new theme, green grass.  I chose green grass to advocate springing towards  life.  Coming to life is a theme in my life and work.  Of course, the theme is ironic, because  grass is a monoculture, which is not sustainable. However, this is fake grass, and we’ll hope it is made of recycled material.

    Well, turning towards our new year, I would like to reflect here on the livingness of life. May we step up, to choose boldly and let the world move what we do.

     

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