Selling Stories

Last week I took a shortcut through Stockholm’s Gamla Stan (The Old Town). Suddenly I stopped in front of a placard advertising an exhibition with some of my absolute favourite designers: Ingegerd Råman, Byarums Bruk, Märta Måås-Fjetterström and Tove Adman. It turned out to be an unexpected combination of design and medals, provided by the Royal Coin Cabinet. I asked if I could take some photos, and to my surprise they said yes.

The day before, Leif and I had talked about how different our approaches are to photography. We both display our photos using Picasa, and get automatic emails when one of us has made any additions. Leif is more into describing sequences, whereas I tend to focus more on details. When taking pictures this time, I started to reflect on my actions. What first caught my eyes was Råman’s glass vases in the window. Then I tried to catch the clever idea of putting the delicate medals under glass together with the plants. After a while I came to realise that I hadn’t really paid attention to the medals as such, why I started to focus on them only. Then I discovered that the combination of glass and light provided some rather funny pictures. After that, I also recognised that I had not captured much of the work of Adman. Leaving the exhibition I took a last shot trying to capture as much as possible, and finally I took a picture of the entrance to make sure I will find my way back. Reflection-in-action proved to be very interesting!

The more distorted pictures reminded me of a research project some former colleagues from the Viktoria Institute did a couple of years ago. They developed digital cameras that changed the image directly. Today similar cameras can be obtained in any store, and I saw a review of a camera that makes your motive look thinner. I’m not sure I like that particular development though… My colleagues were inspired by the lomograph. This special type of camera is provided by the company Lomographische AG. It was started by two marketing students, which is probably the reason why storytelling plays such a big role. They have created www.lomography.com which has the look and feel of a community. Here the “rules” of lomography are presented, and people are encouraged to become members and share their pictures.

If you look at Lomography at Wikipedia, a somewhat different picture emerges. Here you can find links to critical remarks regarding this marketing strategy, and complaints about the price and that the cameras are no longer made in Russia. It’s apparent that with Web 2.0 tools, you’d better keep your story straight, but also that it’s not that easy to tell which story is the truth.

Another example of odd Russian technology is the Theremin, probably the only musical instrument your play by not touching it. This is a kind of early version of the synthesizer and I was not surprised to see that Robert Moog played it as a young student and made use of the experience when developing the famous Minimoog. You can still buy your own Etherwave® Theremin Kit at www.moogmusic.com and put together one just for fun. Moog Music has chosen another approach to their fans/customers. They provide a forum where anyone can ask questions or tell the rest of the world how they have used the products. They are letting the customers tell the story.

What a Theremin sounds like? Well, remember the eerie sound in the theme waltz from Midsomer Murders? That’s it!

The Right Attitude to Rain

I’ve just come back from a brisk walk with my new Nordic walking poles. Although I was highly suspicious of their effectiveness, I must admit that they have totally won me over. Now I definitely have to do some stretching afterwards, just as my chiropractor has ordered. It’s funny how gadgets can be instrumental in creating a frame of mind, transforming a stroll into training.

When I was at the Summer Reflection workshop at Bore Place, we did some walking in the beautiful surroundings. Although the weather was somewhat daunting, we nevertheless put on our boots and ventured into the unknown. James included this in his reflections, viewing walking in the rain as a metaphor for his approach to Appreciative Inquiry.

Alexander McCall Smith is perhaps best known for his books featuring Mma Ramotswe, the first lady detective in Botswana. I do enjoy these books immensely since they provide insights into such diverse topics such as societal entrepreneurship, gender aspects, cultural differences, child rearing and love. However, he also writes about Isabel Dalhousie, the editor of Review of Applied Ethics. In his latest book, The Right Attitude to Rain, Isabel is faced with a number of philosophical and ethical questions mostly regarding to what extent we should tell people things that they probably would benefit from hearing but nonetheless do not want to know.

In the book, W H Auden’s poem “Funeral Blues” plays a significant role. Although this is a very touching verse made popular through the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral, I think I like his villanelle If I Could Tell You even more.

Say Yes to the Mess

What if your organisation was like a jazz band? What would it look like? How would work be organised? What would it feel like? How would decisions be made? How would errors be viewed? Who would be included in the band?

When I was at the Summer Reflections workshop at Bore Place in Kent last week, one item on the superbly composed agenda was to watch a DVD with Frank Barrett talking about creativity and improvisation in jazz and what implications this has for organizational learning. I had the benefit of participating in an AI course featuring Frank in Copenhagen in 2005, organised by Resonans. He then told us about how he combines his experience of being a professional jazz musician with his job at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey. He has written an excellent article in Organizational Science about it, where he emphasise the hope that jazz brings.

”Finally, jazz improvisation can be seen as a hopeful activity. It models individual actors as protean agents capable of transforming the direction and flow of events. In that sense, jazz holds an appreciative view of human potential: it represent the belief in the human capacity to think freshly, to generate novel solutions, to create something new and interesting, reminding us of John Dewey’s contention that we are all natural learners.” (p. 620)

Hope was also one of the underlying themes for the Summer Reflections workshop, at least that was what I felt. We were thirteen AI consultants sharing experiences, reflecting upon our past and making plans for the future. Anne Radford, who organised the workshop with Jane Magruder Watkins, also introduced us to another metaphor: The Jewel Net of Indra. This wonderful story about how to view the world and its connectivity was a great point of departure for our discussion concerning how to create an AI network in the UK. Anne brought us this metaphor from the AI Consulting network, who uses it in its charter:

The doctrine of The Jewel Net of Indra is an ancient view of the universe from Hua-Yen Buddhism. It teaches that the cosmos is like an infinite net of glittering jewels, all-different and each located at the connecting points in the net. In each one we can see the images of all the others reflected. Each image contains an image of all the other jewels; and also the image of the images of the images, and so ad infinitum. The myriad reflections within each glistening jewel are the essence of the jewel itself, without which it does not exist. Every jewel is a Centre of the universe. Organizing in this image is not a machine. It is more like a hologram. Each part is the whole. Indra's Net is a web of relationships that sparkle, nourish, and amplify. It is an ancient image of oneness and diversity.

One of Frank’s messages, based on his jazz metaphor and also experience from an increasingly complex world, was “say yes to the mess”. For a person like me who likes order, is good at organising and makes a living by helping others create order, this sometimes is a hard lesson to learn. However, jazz is not totally without order. There is a basic structure with chords, there are some rules although they are sometimes not made explicit. The secret lies in providing just enough structure, making room for improvisation but also creating wonderful music. I would like to be better at creating jazz. Maybe I should start playing the bass clarinet again…

Feeling Blue

One of the most fascinating stories I’ve ever come across is the book “The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear”. The book introduces you to characters like the Minipirates, the Babbling Billows, Professor Abdullah Nightingale, the Troglotroll, and Fredda the Alpine Imp, but also to places like Hobgoblin Island, Tornado City, the Demerara Desert and the Valley of Discarded Ideas. According to reviewer Georges T Dodd, it is “like Robin Williams and Monty Python joining to narrate a Harold Shea adventure”. I don’t know about that, but I do know it’s a really good read! Extra credit goes to John Brownjohn, who must have had a both hard and joyful time translating from German.

When I told a friend of mine living in Germany about my “discovery”, he kindly informed me that Käpt’n Blaubär is to Germany what Donald Duck is to Sweden on Christmas Eve. Well, German culture is apparently not my bag. Maybe this is my ticket to improving my German though…

Memento Vivere

Ellen Key’s Strand is a house with a very special purpose behind it design. As author and public debater Key devoted her life to the improvement of the life of children and women. When in her late fifties Key wanted to retire in 1910, she had Strand built to first serve as a home for her where she could entertain guests such as Werner von Heidenstam and Prince Eugene. But she also had in mind letting the house be the summer home for working women in need of rest, after her death. The design of the house is bright, warm and clean, with light furniture easy to arrange to support conversation and reflection.

As a house built by a woman and not designed for a traditional family, Strand could have been included in Katarina Bonnevier’s PhD thesis ”Behind Straight Curtains – Towards a Queer Feminist Theory of Architecture”. In this amazing new thesis, three women and their houses are presented: Selma Lagerlöf’s Mårbacka, Natalie Barney’s literary salon at 20 rue Jacob and Eileen Gray’s E.1027.

The thesis is an exploration into the theatricality of architecture, where a house is viewed as a scene where we can take on different roles. Bonnevier is fascinated by what she calls the enactments of architecture. One way the thesis explores this thought is in its format, written as a series of lectures where both fictional students and historical persons are provided with voices. They are not notes from lectures, but written as dramatic scripts in order to become living representations of their contents.

One of the important thoughts explored in this thesis is to what extent architecture is the result of our view of the world, but also how architecture can change our perspective and afford certain activities. One curious similarity between Key and Gray is that they both used text to decorate the walls and make the guests reflect on life. Key with Latin such as “Memento vivere” and “Accende et arde” while Gray’s included messages in French such as "entrez lentement".

I think it is very important to look at seemingly neutral phenomenon with new glasses and also to use other than traditional protocols for theses and presentations. I wish I had more of that kind of courage and imagination when I wrote my thesis ten years ago.

Bonnevier’s thesis has changed my perspective on architecture in a similar way that Sophia Ivarsson and Lina Edmark’s work on gender aspects of international rescue missions provided me with a whole new view. In their report they reveal how the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 is viewed by the Swedish rescue service, and how it has been implemented. It also provides very concrete advice on how to improve the implementation. For example, in an area where women traditionally search the woods for sticks to make cooking fires it does make a tremendous difference if the rescue team only look for landmines on the paths. Still, new perspectives are difficult to introduce why it is important to support collaboration such as the Operation 1325 initiative.

Researching War

When Carl von Clausewitz in the beginning of the 19th century coined the expression “the fog of war” he probably did not realise to what extent it would be used.

"War is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which action is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty." Clausewitz, On War

Although the cannons used at this point of time would most certainly produce a lot of smoke, Clausewitz had a more metaphorical meaning in mind, referring to the chaos and confusion people immersed in battle can experience. This expression is still in much use and it is debated to what extent new information technology contributes to diminish or increase the fogginess. Clausewitz also contributed another much used military metaphor: the theatre of war.

"This term denotes properly such a portion of the space over which war prevails as has its boundaries protected, and thus possesses a kind of independence. This protection may consist in fortresses, or important natural obstacles presented by the country, or even in its being separated by a considerable distance from the rest of the space embraced in the war.” Clausewitz, On War

When viewed as a theatre, the notion of roles in war becomes even more evident. In one of the projects I’m engaged in right now I work with the Swedish National Defence College investigating how the use of academic researchers could be increased in international peacekeeping operations. One fundamental question is what role or roles a researcher could and should take on in such an environment, and be accepted both by his/her combat and faculty co-workers. How can researchers help to clear the fog?

Much organisational and management theory has its origin in the military context. Words like strategy, tactics, deployment and so on are now also used in business settings. However, the underlying military metaphor may have unwanted implications. In the article “The Heart of Appreciative Inquiry” authors John Sutherland and Jacqueline Stavros argue that it is time to replace the war metaphor when doing strategic development. They propose a shift from using tools like SWOT to SOAR instead. As it happens, the next issue (August 2007) of the AI Practitioner will focus on an appreciative approach to strategy where several applications of SOAR can be found. For those interested in other metaphors used in business settings, I recommend “Strategy Safari: A Guided Tour through the Wilds of Strategic Management” by Mintzberg, Ahlstrand, and Lampel, as well as James Lawley’s “Metaphors of Organisations”.

In the future, it would be really interesting to do field research focusing on developing the collaboration between military peacekeeping forces, NGOs and local government organisations. Especially by applying Appreciative Inquiry as both a research and organisational development approach, and by investigating what role modern information technology could play.

To Cultivate One’s Garden

I’ve been an irregular visitor to the Läckö Castle Garden for almost twenty years now. My first visit still comes to my mind in vivid colours. The fresh garden was absolutely new. The sky was as blue as the surrounding inland waters, in stark contrast to the sturdy white castle walls. For the first time, I experienced the beauty of the vegetable garden, making it apparent to me that also the practical can and should be presented in an appealing way. Today’s visit was blessed with the same wonderful weather, with crispy air and shimmering sun. Only the company differed.

A garden is a very useful metaphor, especially apt to illustrate growth and development. I remember when working for Linq how our customer Société Générale liked the name of our corporate portal, The Garden, so much that they adopted it for their own intranet prototype (although renaming it Le Jardin of course). Similar to gardens, you can adopt different strategies for your intranet. Well-structured as a French renaissance garden, or wild as an English park, tranquil as a Japanese Zen garden or surprising as an Italian one. My favourite is the English cottage garden with its abundance of flowers in all shapes, colours and sizes. Easy to overview and manage, and producing a warm welcome. Some day I would like to craft an intranet just like that.

Another garden well worth a visit is Peter Korn’s. This garden is being developed in the woods, based on the principle that plants should be placed where they can more or less manage on their own without adding water or fertilizers. In addition to looking at the rare plants, you can actually buy some as well.

Both these gardens can be considered as the result from combining personal initiative with entrepreneurial encouragement from the Region Västra Götaland. A good reason for everyone to contemplate going home and cultivate their gardens. Especially this year when we celebrate the birth of Carl von Linné 300 years ago!