Interactivist

Posts Mentioning RSS Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

• 

  Tiffany von Emmel 8:35 am on October 24, 2009 Permalink
  Tags: Co-Entrepreneurship   

  350 – An act of co-entrepreneurship 

  Entrepreneurship requires the physical act of stepping up to act for something. But, the idea of entrepreneurship being a solo heroic act is a narrative that should be challenged. Co-entrepreneurship is a new form of enterprise in which we join together to mutual support our dreams in an ensemble vision of a better world. Together, we are stronger, and we are moving forward.

  35o is a performative act of co-entrepreneurship. Today, thousands of people throughout the world are taking part in actions to raise awareness about the number, 350.

  350 parts per million is what many scientists, climate experts, and progressive national governments are now saying is the safe upper limit for CO2 in our atmosphere….To get there, we need a different kind of PPM-a “people powered movement” that is made of people like you in every corner of the planet.

  Wherever you are today, you can participate. Since I am at a day for bloggers at Public Media Collaborative,I am writing this blog post as a 350 action.

  Let’s move to 350, co-entrepreneurs!

   

  Reply Click here to cancel reply.

  Name (required)

  Email (required)

  Web Site

   
• 

  Tiffany von Emmel 8:36 am on February 9, 2009 Permalink
  Tags: culture (4), zappos   

  Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO, on Why Office Parades Matter 

  Zappos offers an example of a new way of work.  The company’s emphasis on culture reminds me of Dreamfish, as creating a creative collaborative culture has been primary for us. A healthy culture pays off in multiple forms of value – personal meaning and purpose for employees, customer benefits, and financial impact.

  The Zappos strategy is to support an empowering company culture first, and enable the culture to inform how customers experience Zappos. Zappos also empowers their reps to deliver on their “wow customer experience” as they see fit. And the strategy delivers. Started in 1999, Zappos, made a billion in gross merchandise sales in 2008.

  Zappos people decide on what culture they want to create. They come up with activities they want to practice. For example, they have a weekly parade through the office, with themes and costumes such as Oktoberfest with Lederhosen.  Here is Oktoberfest at Zappos…

  At Ted conference, Loic Le Meur, Seismic founder, interviewed Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO in a bathroom about culture and company experience. Well, a bathroom interview is a story itself. Lidija Davis at ReadWrite Web has the scoop here.
  

  Creating a culture is about commitment to practice. Culture is created through what the community in the company physically practices in their interactions. If you want a culture of health, do healthy things. Notice your patterns, because these are your values in action. The proof is in the Lederhosen.

   
• 

  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 coworking 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
  Tags: Human Work (4)   

  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 coworkingspaces 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 11:09 pm on December 22, 2008 Permalink
  Tags: Human Work (4)   

  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.coworking!

  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 is discussing. Toggle Comments

   
  • 

    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 8:47 am on June 24, 2008 Permalink
  Tags: learning   

  Linking the context of learning 

  I use my blog as a space for learning and reflection. Today, I was asked to write about what I know, and it brought me to sitting here, slowing down to reflect about how much the support systems around us shape our perspectives. My first and most important mentor was my mother, also a woman entrepreneur out to change the world. Interestingly, it is now in my life when I choose to look particularly for guidance and stories about women leaders. I am now reading the book, Women on Top. 

  It is a curious thing to see how I shape the work of my life through the choices of ecosystems that I participate in. I am also having fun with Twitter. As a life mission, I work on problems related to the people side of sustainability, where we need new thinking, new models, and new tools. Seeking to address these issues has led me into wide deep collaborations with many amazing men and women and their pioneering work. To honor them here…. Charlie Seashore and Edie Seashore in the Use of Self,   Peter Park in Participatory Action Research, Anna Halprin in participatory performance with large groups, Wataru Ohashi in somatics and systems thinking, and my co-facilitator and beloved life partner, Dietmar Brinkmann. 

   
• 

  Tiffany von Emmel 10:29 am on February 14, 2008 Permalink
  Tags: job, leadership, organization development (6), stanford   

  Job – Leadership Coach, Stanford Graduate School of Business 

  Thought this job opportunity might be of interest. Personally, I have thoroughly enjoyed my experience as a facilitator at Stanford, and know many people within the Dreamfish community who have as well.

  "The Center for Leadership Development and Research at Stanford will be hiring for a full-time Leadership Coach shortly. A job listing has been posted (link below), so if you happen to know somebody that you think would be interested and a good fit (or if you might be interested yourself), I'd be happy to talk with you about it.

  The leadership coaches support faculty in multiple courses, including Interpersonal Dynamics (facilitation and journal reading). The coaches also support Carole Robin's course in 'Leadership Coaching and Mentoring' and Evelyn Williams' courses, known as the Leadership Fellows course and the Leadership Labs, which is part of the first-year MBA curriculum. The courses and activities the coaches support may change and grow over time, but these courses do require enough specialized expertise that some experience or background with at least some of them is very helpful."

  The job listing, if you are interested, can be viewed here

  http://recruit.trovix.com/jobhost/jobhost/ViewJobPostDetails.do?title=LEADERSHIP+COACH,+CLDR&jobPostId=620680&accountId=de85ad313f8598db1c42b567a3df24a00497ba22&button=&action=viewDetails">
  

   
• 

  Tiffany von Emmel 3:37 am on November 29, 2007 Permalink
  Tags: culture (4), intercultural communication (2)   

  Inter: learn about crossing cultures on download 

  I strongly believe that collaborating across borders – remixing the divides of culture; ideas; economic sectors of business, nonprofits and government; people processes and information technology; across ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, physical ability –that this collaboration will enable the innovation we need to better our world. Sustainability innovation emerges in working together, when we make our edges fluid. In the in-between places of our collaboration, the gaps between what we think we know and what we can be together. This is where the juice is at. O.k., nuff said about improvisation! Here is a great free resource to learn about interdisciplinary work in the field of Cultural Studies – INTER conference's downloadable full text papers!….

  INTER: A European Cultural Studies Conference in Sweden" was organised by
  ACSIS in Norrköping, 11-13 June 2007. The conference proceedings are now
  digitally published by Linköping University Electronic Press. The volume
  comprises a selection of some 70 interesting papers, filling more than 700
  pages. It offers a unique sample of Swedish and European cultural studies
  today, covering a wide range of topics. Separate papers as well as the whole
  volume can be freely downloaded at http://www.ep.liu.se/ecp/025/

   
• 

  Tiffany von Emmel 2:17 pm on November 14, 2007 Permalink
  Tags: barcelona, free hugs (2), video (9)   

  Free Hugs Barcelona style 

  When I saw this video of Barcelona's Free Hugs, I felt affirmed in my humanity. I have been practicing this micro-activism at events as well as in our workplace through the simple act of hanging a sign on the wall…..To hang artifacts on the office wall (or post on your blog) is a ritual act of creating who we are. For example, a diploma on a wall will be read as "I am an expert" to clients and patients. Then, we are treated as expert by ourselves and others. Or, artwork can be read as, "I am hip" or "I am an important person". When I walk into our office every morning, I see a sign with painted red letters. "FREE HUGS" it says. When I see this sign in the workplace, I feel the immediacy of caring, caring about my colleagues, about our world, and about why my work today matters. It reminds me of special moments, hugging people during Dreamfish guerrilla Free Hug Campaigns at events and conferences . Reading the sign affirms to me that this is the kind of work and workplace I want to create. I believe that social networking is the act of putting good hugs to good work.

   

   
• 

  Tiffany von Emmel 4:05 am on September 9, 2007 Permalink
  Tags: consulting, organization development (6), technology (3)   

  hammers and buckets 

  The conversations I like to be in are about helping people to join together in enlivening ways to learn, grow as humans and work for a better world. What pains me is when I see an alienating social experience where people are regressing, bored, isolating, checking out and acting out. To know what I mean, think back to school (or maybe yesterday at work:) , as boredom and alienation thrive in institutions. However, pain motivates people to do something differently. So, often, I am called in to problem-solve – to fix the pain in a system and design an experience like a conference, an organizational change initiative or a social ritual, where it is perceived that something has not gone quite right before. Helping to fix the pain is an opportunity to begin to effect some transformation in the organization or community.

  

  Ironically, the problem-solving that brought me to the situation often runs amock in the system. Hammers and buckets are brought out, where no hammers and buckets are needed. Now, problem-solving as a technique has its place, but it is used as a method far more than is appropriate, when learning, human growth and systemic change in an organization or community are what is desired…. Even in a situation that works beautifully!! Often, a situation doesn't need the fixing force of a hammer or the containment of buckets, but that's what get used anyway. Hammers come in the form of content experts, models, tools, theories and controlling behaviors. Buckets come in the form of increasing control measures, more oversight, siloing people into functional and topical boxes.

  I also have my favorite hammers and buckets. I'm very fond of them and I think they work. But, life is too complex for templates. So, the problem-solving I prefer is limited to critically identifying undesired patterns in a system to determine what difference is desired. Beyond this, I shift my thinking into an ongoing "relational creative" process, not a critical problem-solving mode. "Collaboration is more of an art, not a science" (Tapscott and Williams, Wikinomics). To imagine what I would as a social designer and facilitator, I first look with the client at what are the goals and vision for the future, the situation, who is involved, the space and the time, the resources available to then together create a social design. And then using the design as an initial structure, facilitators show up in the present moment to make creative relational choices.

  The pattern of "I gotta fix this" arises when people feel out of control, want to feel more influential, and/or are in pain. And in a complex fluid creative situation, the need for control will come up. Particularly, for managers and organizers who are real good hammer and bucket makers. So, I then see how I can help leaders and facilitators to feel more interconnected, become aware of their influence and increase their sense of self-efficacy. When people feel both more connected to what is around them and confident in their ability to make creative choices, they then have a higher tolerance for ambiguity and are more likely to make choices that are good for the whole.

  In our hearts, I believe that humans want education and work to foster the experience of creativity and freedom, not control. Learning and growth need respecting, nurturing, connecting, playing, noticing best practices and doing more of that. Social design is an improvisational art craft. And, as with any craft, there comes a little hammering and bucketing. A little. Life is not a problem to be fixed. Life is to be embraced.