... thoughts written down in January 2009

In January 2009, the Presencing Institute Community hardly had opened, I posted a comment on OttoScharmer's initial question on whether the new PI toolbox would be useful in daily work. With a recent experience around a possible future role that sort of was tailored for my person, becoming head of social media and boundary crossing, this old entry "called  me up" when opening the PI Community [given link here is outdated, therefore here the new on Presencing Institute, 2015-02-03] website:


"..People who know me better know about my passion to vision away to the "big ultimate" vision (not possible today;-)) and make them shaky. Even though it is difficult to keep the pace down (for me a real challenge, especially when I talk with people who are also as crazy visionaries;-)), boiling my thinking and talking down to easier achievable goals makes the other ones feel more comfortable. 


This leads often (not always) to new insights and thoughts on their side, which they then articulate.

The PI toolbox works fine (probably) when people have already some sense about the raw direction where to go (can be really broad). On the other hand, I always get ???s when mentioning the Theory U process, as it is for most people (at least the ones, I mostly talk to with engineering background) not concrete enough (they are used to numbers and predictable output).

A special framework reach out to these environments (especially middle-managers and employees) would be excellent. What are the thoughts and ideas on that?




Best regards


Ralf




PS.: For anybody interested in Theory U - like stories, have a look at Gordon MacKenzie's "Orbiting the Giant Hairball" - easy and fun to read:-)..."

Sechs einfache Worte

Wenn Du nicht mehr weiter weißt, gehe dorthin wo du nichts für dein ProJect erwartest.

Lasse dich überraschen. Staune, was die Welt durch dich und Sprache oder Schrift möglich macht.

Ergreife die MoegLich'keit (auch die klitzekleine), wenn Du das GeFuehl hast, dass sie der TuerOeffner zu mehr ist.

..... und Du wirst wieder ins Staunen kommen, was alles MachBar wird :-))

Originaltext - Zeitenläufte sind stets komplex, insbesondere wenn nicht sichtbar auf herkömmlichen Weg

Changing Habits, or Moving to Passion?

Just some late night thoughts that have come up while reading through my older blog posts on PI Community (the site has transformed into u.school). As the group started back in winter 2008 there had been an interesting thread started on new year's resolutions around our personal intention and awareness on the power of collective wisdom.

Reply by Ralf Lippold on December 31, 2008, at 7:53 am

Dear ...,

Thank you very much for the strong questions that wander around in my head all the time as I see the disconnectedness in the world (even though the issues could be easily tied together!)

1) How can we remain focused as the sharing of experience and information gets saturated?

The real action will give the opportunity of remaining focused. The mere talking is -at one certain point- taking the energy out of people's contribution to the issue. If you don't have real people around in your area who are thinking in the same way, online conversations are the starter and connector to the larger whole through a new -unfamiliar- medium. Nevertheless meeting in person will be essential - even with people who have not the same view or actually deny the ideas (like I realized here in Dresden and Genthin, where everybody is lamenting and when it comes to true action, no action will be taken, as that could be done by the others, please not me;-().

2) How can we transform virtual dialogues/conversations to concrete physical actions?

Start something small where you as a single person see some impact, act and reflect on what the outcome is. Bring this into the conversation (virtually) and let others learn from it. Sure enough -especially around with all these great people in this community- you will get valuable feedback. Others will see that your projects very well connect with their projects. Connections will be drawn, and it will be only a matter of time to connect in person and meet to get the thing running.

3) How can we engage face to face focus groups in physical places with a virtual online space?

....and I come back to my initial observation:

Stay local and get inspiration by going once in a while to other places to meet people in person. That is what I am doing, starting the Team Academy idea in Dresden, reconnect with the folks at Team Academy up in Finland and come back with new insights, ideas, connections, people, etc.

4) How can we leverage the power and energies of the committed in this common grounded community to respond effectively to the immediate needs and desires present now?

Always seeking for the leverage points in the system we are in and would like to be changed. That has drawn me into the field of system dynamics, which at first sight looks quite technical and just for the engineers. It is not like that at all:-) The holistic view in this methodology and the possibility to apply it to all different kinds of systems, such as human body, organizations, government policies, politics, education, disaster preventing, sustainable energy, people development, leadership development, etc., is what makes it even more applicable.

Of course, that is not enough and one has to explore other fields and methods around it to get to the change.

Best regards

Ralf

Iolanta (Jolanthe) - Sehen Lernen

Copyright: Semperoper.de

In Kürze zu den Ereignissen rund um Iolanta (Jolanthe) von gestern, die ich live in der Semperoper erlebte (Parkett Reihe 17, Platz 5 - übrigens empfehlenswert, wer den Überblick über Bühne und Zuschauerraum bevorzugt und das gesamte "Feld" spüren möchte).

(1) - (2) - (3) - (4) (PresencingStatus auf Twitter)

Ein Besuch lohnt sich allemal und viel Spaß beim Genießen dieser wunderbaren Oper, die reichlich Anknüpfungspunkte in die heutige Zeit bietet. Als Zuschauer fühlt man sich durchaus in Iolantas Rolle, d.h. man muss erst das SEHEN lernen! In diesem Sinne eine gute Zeit.

PS.: Libretto zum Nachlesen findet sich hier (deutsch) und there (English).

Parks seldom start big - they grow

Happy New to all. May all your dreams fulfill during the course of the coming 365 days :-)

As I have moved into 2011 quite effortless, no big party, just listening to a superb concert
from Semperoper which was live-streamed, there was not more than letting things come.
Do we know what is calling us? Sometimes we have a feeling, more often we just don't
have a clue.

So totally empty in my head, I organized some bags with stuff from the "lost" venue CoOrpheum.

Surprise! JaneJacobs' "The Economy of Cities" got into my hands and off my thoughts were this past afternoon. Quoted from it, "Furthermore, the most meteoric rises (started at almost nothing) occur in new activities".

Would you have thought that the "Große Garten" in Dresden would look like that  two hundred years back?

As small as your first step towards your dream may look like just start and you will see what can emerge with some patience!

... a few thoughts for a finishing year

2010 is just having an open gap of a few minutes. ChrisBrogan has inspired me just a couple of minutes ago to do similar (not just copy & paste).
For me there are also three ways to reflect about the past 365 days.

Put down your thoughts
Tell the world your accomplishments
Do a PresencingStatus (as learned by OttoScharmer)

1. Thoughts about the past and how they connect to this very last day of the year

• This morning I learned from a mate in the Singularity Network on Facebook that he got Lyme-Disease (after 1.5 year undiscoverage). Reminded me of my own fight with that some eight years ago - and the power of experts who know only about their specific fields. Enabling the open flow of knowledge sharing will be the future.
• After the new director, Dr. UlrikeHessler, had taken over operation of the Semperoper. A personal visit to the Day of the Open Door at Semperoper, and got hooked on something my mother some twenty years back tried to teach me. The learner only learns when the learner is ready to learn!

These small unnoticed events are what I am passionate about, helping friends and clients. These kind of events fill me with grace when I see that felt problem emerges into a future chance due to minor interventions. So in the end it is a win-win-win situation!

2. This year's two accomplishments that have taken place are around my broader vision to "create a place where people truly can play to their strengths and skills" (as stated on 14th of January 2009 up at TeamAcademy in Jyväskylä during a leadership workshop, verified by a dear friend).

• In spring we managed to get a 800 sqm ballroom for three months (for free (!)) to prototype new forms of working, which is called CoWorking. All started with somebody asking one (!) day before Xmas in 2009 whether I would know some space to run a birthday party for 50 people. He asked me, because I am somewhat connected in the city of Dresden, whether I would know some place. I couldn't (rather let the problem stay on his side, as well as the solution) and told him a name that is active in the party life in Dresden. The story in short seen here. It turned out that this guy happened to come over to our office, LockOffice, back in January. I asked whether the other one had phoned him. And yes, he had done so and they had the party in the ballroom (that actually was not open to the public). This arouse my curiosity even further when I was sort of forced to leave the LockOffice end of April. So we moved into a beautiful ballroom in the first week of May, and called it CoOrpheum. The story ended now as a new tenant entered the game after the creatives had created the foundation and visibility as well as put some "stones" of the past out of the way (in conversations with city officials). 
• The second accomplishment I remember very well of the past year went jointly together with the visit of RayKurzweil at the 4th Dresden Future Forum, where I held a workshop together with RainerWasserfuhr about LongBetOne. We met RayKurzweil in person and he wished us all the best for the ambitious goal of implementing a European hot spot on the emerging technological advances, SingularAcademy. I deeply have to thank MarcellaGaeb and ThomasKoeplin for making this all possible!!!
• People whom I am thankful to have met

3. The final PresencingStatus of the year 2010:

• Good: staying with persistence on track to make my vision to become reality 
• Tricky: dealing with all the turmoil around the CoOrpheum, within the existence and the closing
• Learned: the right people who can help come up sometimes from areas where you least expect them
• Action: take the job I have been offered the week before Xmas, I have the gut feeling this is a fit for both sides

"Loose" in order to Win

A very warm Merry Xmas to all of you who are reading these lines!

The following is taken from a six-month old conversation on the PI Community where I asked other members about their experience with group dynamics, especially when they felt that the social field "crashed" (in a sense that it couldn't provide the higher purpose it had been initially meant to be).

Just thinking about social fields, I ask myself, wether they just don't crash and rather evolve into something new.

It only can crash if you hold on something. Image a cup of tea. You normally hold on to it drinking your tea. Does it fall down, it crashes - meaning you can't drink your tea from it any longer.

Opening your mind and heart to the future that emerges from the fact that the cup is now not usable for holding fluids opens new paths.

What do you think? What if this metapher applies in other context as well?

Go Slow to See Far and Close - Merry Xmas and a Good Time

Over the past week some amazing things have happened in my life. What I never thought to become true, bringing the idea of TeamAcademy to Dresden has been called upon me from quite a different place in Germany ("Thanks a lot for the phone call on Friday last week!"). As many of you know I do quite an amazing lot of things ranging from becoming an opera enthusiast, harnessing my helping capabilities for individuals and organizations (which is not always easy admit), being active restlessly in different social networks ("When does he work when he jumping around everywhere and nowhere?" - that is one question I get again and again, friends, clients, even people I just know via the web), connecting people when I see the potential of them working/ talking together for the greater good, .... and countless more. It sometimes disturbes people what I do, as it seems just too much for others.

Should we therefor stop to being ourselves?

Everybody has his or her very special super powers. Mine have evolved actively over the course of many years. It has become networking across boundaries (bringing people together for good who would never know about each other), multitaskingly "swimming" in different ponds of knowledge (that on the surface from what you see, read, and experience in your life seemingly are un-connected).

It all boils down to create an environment where people can thrive to what they really are. ViktorFrankl, survivor of the Holocaust, who's name I read in OttoScharmer's book "Theory U - Leading from the Future as it Emerges." with a short inspiring speech.

How to get there? Can I do it, and how should I get to put my inner strengths joyfully at work?

Take the "Minimalist Workday" as my present for the coming future.

There are ways to master the art of time, and the best way to do that is to become a hunter. A hunter spots opportunities and greets them ... this, above all else is the winning strategy for working less.

Schlummernde Venus - ein stilles Geheimnis

Schlummernde Venus von Tizian und Giordione (1508-1510)

Sonntagnachmittag um Fünf - ein trüber Tag mit Matsch und Schnee neigt sich dem Tagesende zu. Ein Besuch im Hygienemuseum ist abgesagt. Was also tun mit  dem Tag?

[hier kommt noch ein Bild hinein] - welches wohl das passende ist? [Tip bitte in den Kommentar schreiben]

Ein Gang in die Gemäldegalerie vielleicht? Ein Katzensprung und doch Jahrhunderte entfernt. Was außerhalb der Stadt die Chipwerke rund um Infineon und Global Foundries darstellen (Hightech von heute, immer kleiner immer nanohafter) ist hier innerhalb des Gottfried Semper erschaffenen Raumes eher mit Monumentalität zu bezeichnen.

Welche Informationen sind in den Bildern verborgen, die wir beim Betrachten derselben aufnehmen oder auch unberücksichtigt lassen? Das Ergebnis ist zu sehen als Bild, jedoch ist uns auch klar, was der Künstler im Kopf dachte, als er vor der noch frischen und leeren Leinwand stand (oder saß, wir wissen es oft nicht)? Was hat er wahrgenommen, wer hat mit ihm gesprochen und was trieb ihn an?

Was mag es bei der "Schlummernden Venus" gewesen sein? Was wollen uns die Maler mit ihrem Werk "sagen"? Es scheint etwas Besonderes zu haben, denn -wie unschwer zu erkennen- ist das Parkett an dieser Stelle des Raums sichtlich abgenutzter. Sex sells, or better Sex pulls ;-)

Wie mit vielen Dingen, die uns täglich umgeben, sei es Kunst in Form eines Ballettstücks, einer Oper, eines Bildes oder auch nur eines Services, den wir im Geschäftsleben erfahren: das was wir sehen ist nicht das was dahinter steckt.

Der kreative Prozess bleibt uns weitgehend als Empfänger, Betrachter oder Genießer schlichtweg verborgen. Wir versuchen unsere eigenen Erfahrungen und Sichtweisen mit dem Erlebten in der Verbindung zu bringen. Doch was passiert, wenn wir jemanden anderen treffen und wir über das Gesehen sprechen?

Eine ausführlichere Erklärung ist hier zu finden. Wann machen wir uns im realen Leben den Aufwand, nach den Hinter- und Beweggründen von Ereignissen zu fragen?

Viel hat sich seit dem 16. Jahrhundert nicht verändert - damals fehlte das Buch, heute der Mut neue Medien für das Erfragen von Hintergründen zu nutzen. An der Zeit wäre es, denn sowohl Buch als auch Web sind als Wissensplattform reichlich vorhanden - nur fehlt uns heute oft die Zeit (so hat man zumindest das Gefühl).

... und nun heißt es, GEHEN (denn der Gong wird geschlagen hier in den Räumen der Gemäldegalerie).

Danke, dass ich einige Gedanken in dieser anderen Umgebung zu Papier bringen durfte :-)

Dido and Aeneas - First Premiere for Myself;-)

Some thirty (30!) years back my mother tried to introduce me to opera (actually there was no opera house in Mainz where I come from) - it never quite connected. It took the arrival of the new intendant and some turbulences in the web (on the new website of Semperoper) to reconnect my latent interest.

The newly set up Semperoper Junge Szene had today its second premiere at 12 o'clock (High Noon;-)) with "Dido and Aeneas". On Friday I checked for tickets - bad luck. So I thought, "Why not try on Sunday - if not getting tickets, there is always the Albertinum or Residenzschloss to enjoy culture" (on a year-round pass (!)) - off into the icy and still melting snow (more grey watery mud) at half past eleven.

(Un-)surprisingly quite a crowd awaiting and no ticket again - but as one calls it in Ultimate Frisbee "No disc is lost until it really touches the ground!"- so I waited in line in the hope of some returning tickets together with a few others. And got a TICKET:-)

Due to standing in line and my mind focused on getting a ticket I just remembered that I needed to catch a booklet (to pre-inform myself about the performance). I gained a bit of insight into what would be seen on stage I had learned via the Facebook group of Semperoper Junge Szene.

Written in the 17th century it took no big deal to transfer the story into the present situational context of a girls boarding school. Even the feeling of the giggling girls came over quite well. What started with a stare on the unquestionable iPhone (probably reading about the message of her boyfriend breaking with her) emerged into a plot where three time-layers (IMHO) intermingled: antique, medieval, and present.

The girls coming from a winning tennis match, are about to party with the landscape of thoughts quite open ("white canvas") they see their companion in grief and try to engage her in their party feelings (which does not really work in the beginning). Not long and they put the story of "Dido and Aeneas" to life.

What are the takeaways from this morning? I'd like to share what my PresencingStatus:

• Good: dared to get a ticket, another opportunity to learn about opera (step by step), feeling the power of the crowd, a beautifully created booklet setting up emotions (racing us back to the days of our own school days, remembering the pillow fights;-))

• Tricky: honestly not having read deeper into the story beforehand, not used to understanding opera voices (I guess for me in German it is even worse;-)) 

• Learned: sitting in the middle of the watching crowd let me experience the voices of critics (writing for a newspaper), and enthusiastic fans, never go to an opera without having prepared and learned about the plot (!), staying seated till the very end opens up new paths of seeing the world 

• Action: book wish for Xmas, Reclam Opera Guide and Ballet Guide, revisit "Dido and Aeneas" a second time

Still in the learning phase of understanding deeper the inner play of opera, and thankful for any comments if you have seen the piece as well.

PS.: In English in honour to the protagonists of the play who have sung in English.