Coworking Week

Letzte Woche war bundesweite Coworking Week mit über 100 Veranstaltungen in ganz Deutschland - in München war besonders im Combinat 56 einiges geboten. Zumindest die Auftaktveranstaltung (Open Elevator mit anschliessender Vernissage) und den krönenden Abschluss (mit einem Vortrag von Nahne Steinauer vom Kursbüro zu Online-Geschäftsmodellen) habe ich mir nicht entgehen lassen - und dabei interessante Leute kennengelernt, andere Coworker wiedergetroffen und neue Impulse bekommen. Coworking in schönster Form.

Das passt zu meinem aktuellen Thema, bei dem es um vernetztes Arbeiten geht:  Die Formen und Vorteile von Netzwerkbildung, speziell für Klein- und Kleinstunternehmen, aber auch die Schwierigkeiten und Grenzen.  Nachdem ich mich durch jede Menge wissenschaftlicher Artikel und Fallstudien gelesen hatte, fiel mir auf, dass  noch vor 5 - 10 Jahren sehr viel Hoffnung in das Internet und die damit verbundenen neuen technischen Kooperations- und Kommunikationsmöglichkeiten gesetzt wurde, die vernetztes Arbeiten ermöglichen sollten.

Tun sie ja auch. Trotzdem ist inzwischen eine gewisse Ernüchterung (oder Gewöhnung an Web2.0) eingetreten. Tolle technische Lösungen sind eine schöne Sache, der Erfolg eines "Collaborative Network" hängt aber an anderen Faktoren - und viele davon haben wieder mit Vertrauen zu tun: Angst vor Kontrollverlust, Angst vor Know-How-Verlust, Unsicherheit über Kompetenzen, Gewinnverteilungs- und Haftungsfragen,... all diese Dinge brauchen eine Kultur des Vertrauens (einschliesslich Selbstvertrauen) um ansprechbar zu werden. Persönliche Treffen sind dabei noch immer die besten "Tools" um Vertrauen aufzubauen. Was ich in der Wissenschaftsliteratur noch nicht gelesen habe: Coworking Spaces als besonders geeignete Orte, um sich zwanglos kennenzulernen und Vertrauen zu fassen. Kommt noch, ganz sicher!

365 Tage Einkaufsstopp im Selbstversuch

Ende Juli 2009 stehe ich vorm Kleiderschrank und bemerke – mal wieder – wie voll der ist, für eine frisch gekaufte Jacke ist kaum noch Platz. Dabei trage ich nur einen Bruchteil der Sachen, die dafür aber regelmäßig. Und natürlich bin ich auch regelmäßig der Meinung, nichts zum Anziehen zu haben. Dann brauche ich etwas Neues, ist ja klar. Besonders nachhaltig ist das nicht und auch nicht besonders einfallsreich.

Ich beschließe ein Experiment: 365 Tage keine neuen Klamotten für mich kaufen. Stattdessen die vergessenen und schrulligen Teile in die Garderobe einbeziehen und neu kombinieren. Vorhandene Ressourcen kreativ nutzen, so die Philosophie. Flohmarkt-Käufe und –Verkäufe sollten erlaubt sein. Wie würde es mir damit ergehen?

Ein Jahr ist vergangen. Zeit für eine Bilanz:

• Habe ich durchgehalten? Wenn ich von den 2 Paar Sandalen und 2 Gürteln, die ich mir gekauft habe, großzügig absehe, habe ich mir tatsächlich nichts Neues gekauft. Vom Flohmarkt kamen einige wenige Sachen in meinen Schrank. Verkauft habe ich selbst nichts (wie ursprünglich geplant), nur ein paar Kindersachen, aber die zählen nicht. Der Radius der Kleidungsstücke, die ich regelmäßig trage, hat sich schon erweitert, aber es gibt immer noch genug ungenutztes Potential. Ein paar Sachen habe ich auch endgültig weggegeben. Kaputte Reißverschlüsse und aufgerissene Nähte habe ich tendenziell häufiger repariert oder reparieren lassen.
• Welche Auswirkungen hatte das Experiment? Der wichtigste und am wenigsten erwartete Effekt war der Zeitgewinn. Kataloge wanderten ungesehen in den Müll, keine Streifzüge zum Nur-mal-so-Umsehen durch die Läden, keine Modezeitschriften, kein Klicken durch Online-Shops. Vergleichen, Auswählen, Anprobieren – das ist auch Stress und den hatte ich nicht mehr.
• Wie hat es sich angefühlt? Zunächst war da die Erleichterung, dem Kaufstress entronnen zu sein, auch eine gewisse Selbstzufriedenheit (Vorsicht, Gutmenschentum!). Dann kamen auch Momente, in denen ich gern etwas Neues gekauft hätte. Eine Lieblingsstrickjacke war versehentlich in der Kochwäsche gelandet, am liebsten hätte ich mich mit einem neuen Ersatz getröstet. Der Kauftrieb war also da. Perfiderweise wurde in solchen Situationen aus dem ursprünglichen Gedanken („Ich kaufe nichts, weil ich aus dem Reichtum meines Kleiderschranks schöpfe“) ein ganz anderer Gedanke: "Ich darf nichts kaufen, weil ich Ressourcen sparen muss." So wie man zwanghaft kaufen kann, kann man auch zwanghaft nicht kaufen. Der Gedanke, nicht genug zu haben, der jedesmal dahinter steckt, ist extrem hartnäckig.
• Und nun? Vor ein paar Tagen bin ich durch einige Läden gelaufen – und habe gestaunt: Neue Hosenschnitte, andere Stoffe. Auf die neue Mode war ich ja nicht vorbereitet. Natürlich war mir Vieles schon hier und da auf der Straße aufgefallen, da fand ich es kreativ und individuell. Aber als ich die Sachen dann nach Größen sortiert in den Regalen sah, war die Vorstellung von Individualität dahin. Keine neue Erkenntnis, aber so krass hatte ich es noch nicht erlebt.

Übrigens: Auf die Idee mit dem Experiment war ich unter anderem durch das Uniform Project gekommen: Sheena Mattheiken trug ein Jahr lang das gleiche Kleid, aber jeden Tag mit gebrauchten oder geschenkten Accessoires völlig anders gestylt. Mit dem Projekt zeigte sie nicht nur, dass nachhaltige Mode individuell und fantasievoll sein kann, sondern sammelte auch Spenden für die Schulbildung von Kindern in indischen Slums. Dafür wurde sie von der Zeitschrift Elle sogar zu einer der Frauen des Jahres 2009 gekürt. Unbedingt ansehen!

If Creativity was Currency

Some weeks back, the little Gallery Patrizia Zewe hosted Munich’s first art- for-service swap. Artists traded their works (see picture) for services they could use, like a course in digital photography or a ride to Frankfurt. Many similar exchange projects exist  – one of the latest that caught my attention is Clothing for Correspondence,  a service by professional texters, who will write your fun correspondence in exchange for second hand clothes.

Just odd experiments? Well, most of the time, creativity has to be translated into an accepted currency before it pays the bill. This is what David Thorne learned, when he allegedly tried to pay his electricity bill with a spider doodle in 2008. Now a Brooklyn hospital finds that time is an acceptable currency, too, and that health care services can be paid with performances.

In May, the Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center in Brooklyn will launch the Artist Access program , which will allow artists to collect health care credits for a performance in the geriatric ward, for teaching drawing in the pediatric unit or for decorating the hospital interior with murals. Health care credits (40 credits per hour) can then be used to pay for fees incurred at Woodhull for health care services.

Transactions without money will become less exotic in the Gig Economy, I am sure of that. And, well, the reason I am shedding a light on this topic is that I am willing to exchange 5 of my doodle art envelopes for a decent sun hat.

Hello, Prima Donna

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure to attend the CEB (Creative Economy and Beyond) conference in Helsinki - a great place to mingle and to pick up ideas.

Among the people I had met was Roosevelt Finlayson from the Bahamas who spoke about Festivals as a model for building creative communities, and for establishing commitment and self-esteem.
His presentation was the last one that first conference day, so in the conversation afterwards we not only moved from one topic to the next, but also from the harbour district to the city center. I noticed that people responded to Roosevelt as if they knew him, as if they regarded him as a friend, even before he said a single word. (And that is certainly not the typical Finnish mentality). "How do you do this," I asked Roosevelt. "Well, I love people," he said simply. And by then I could tell that this was indeed a fact, not an idealized vision of himself.

In a way, Roosevelt Finlayson embodied a finding from a study that Helle Hedegard Hein presented at CEB the next day. In order to find out how highly creative employees should be managed, she had spent three years at the Royal Danish Theatre observing how managers and creative specialists behaved. She found that creative specialists can basically be grouped into four categories:
The Prima Donnas who feel that they have a higher calling: Prima Donnas experience flow and get kicks out of working hard and stretching their personal limits. What they want from their managers is honest feedback, recognition and a shielding leadership. Status and financial rewards are not motivating for them, as they feel they have a mission to give their personal gift to the world.
The calling to a higher mission was totally missing in creative specialists in the other three categories: The High Achievers, the Pragmatists and the Pay Check Worker are, in varying degrees, more motivated by status, public praise and financial rewards, while their creativity and commitment decreases. The most difficult creative specialists are those in the "Pay Check Worker" box, as they constantly demand a higher salary while at the same time they defend low performance standards. For them, just coming to work already deserves a special bonus.
Two observations were especially interesting:

1. No one is somehow genetically tied to one category. But creative people can regress to a lower category, either voluntarily (if that makes sense for a period in life), or involuntarily, out of frustration. And unfortunately, the latter seems to be the case most of the time.
2. Managers should never address Pay Check Workers as Pay Check Workers, Pragmatists as Pragmatists or High Achievers as High Achievers as that will cause them to regress even more.

So the solution for managers is very simple: Everyone should be addressed like a prima donna, everyone is at a deep and maybe hidden level, a prima donna, a person with a unique gift to bring into the world.

Which brings me back to Roosevelt Finlayson, who can see the prima donna and the lovable side even in the strangers around him. Strangers, who then started to see him in the same way, as a trustworthy friend.

Why do rules tend to be ugly?

For some reason, enforcing rules often seems to produce ugliness. (Pictures from Helsinki)

Connecting to Urban Space

Connect To Urban Space

View more documents from Ines Seidel.

Recently I had a look at trends and developments that are related to the creative industries. And there was a aha!-moment for me when I realised that for many of the creative professionals, who often have a message that they are passionate about, the street is the place to go. It is not the gallery and not the virtual world in the first place.

And as we know, also activist movements and flashmob activities use the web as a tool to interact but the "place were things happen" is the street, the public place, the city.

At the same time it also seems to be true that cities can have a deadening effect: The urban environment is a post-natural environment which gives us the impression that we as humans stand outside nature. This may be one of the reasons why people find it hard to act about environmental issues. The environment seems to be a place far away that has little to do with everyday life.

So, to sum things up, I came to the conclusion that the urban space is one of the hottest interactive platforms that we have for social transformation, but many people feel not connected. So I created this fun presentation which suggests various ways to develop a relationship to the wild nature that even the urban space still has, ways that at the same time also work to strengthen one's own creative muscles.

Postgrowth Society

"Just as unlimited population expansion is untenable, so is unlimited GDP growth. Yet the open-ended commitment to economic growth persists, and it is now creating more problems than it is solving. It undermines jobs, communities, the environment, a sense of place and continuity, and even mental health. It fuels a ruthless international search for energy and other resources, and it rests on a consumerism that is manufactured by marketers and failing to meet the deepest human needs." - James Gustave Speth in "Doing Business in a Postgrowth Society", Harvard Business Review.

Recognizing patterns

"Recognizing pattern is one of humanity's greatest abilities. It is the basis of conscious awareness that brings cohesion to a chaotic world by allowing us to see contrast as well as similarity." -Maggie Macnab in "Decoding Design"

Story beneath...Barcoding Trees

Last week Reuters reported about a British company that is barcoding trees to protect the forest:

"Deep in the world's tropical rainforests, workers are hammering thousands of barcodes into hardwood trees to help in the fight against illegal logging, corruption and global warming.

The plastic tags, like those on supermarket groceries, have been nailed to a million trees across Africa, southeast Asia and South America to help countries keep track of timber reserves.

Helveta, the British company behind the technology, says the barcodes will help firms comply with tough laws on importing sustainable timber into the United States and Europe.

They could also play a role in fighting deforestation, which accounts for about a fifth of global emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide. ...

"We bring transparency and visibility where historically that has probably been limited at best," Patrick Newton, Helveta's chief executive officer, told Reuters."

Sounds like a good solution? I am not so sure. To me that sounds like a reflex reaction to treat symptoms of a deeper pathology with the cures that we tare most familiar with: controlling, measuring, administrating. Nature is seen as something we can put a tag on, simply a resource. And that would be one of the memes that is being spread with this type of solution: Nature is a resource that we can only protect if we bring it into our warehousing system.

Maybe barcoding is a better-than-nothing solution for the time being, but generally speaking, it only enforces alienation from nature. Which is the real reason for thoughtless pollution or irresponsible exploitation of the ecosystem

Related post: Learning for Life

Looking for the Story Beneath

Storytelling is one of the big re-discoveries in communication. Books like "Made to Stick" tell that if you want the world to know your message you have to tell it in an accessible story, not with statistics and facts. Brain research supports this: We are more likely to remember content that we learned as part of a story (preferrably an emotional story), rather than from a list of "things to remember". In "The Meme Machine", Susan Blackmore even goes so far to suggest that our brains are so big because we needed the brain power to be better story tellers. Good story tellers increased their chances of survival.

In this context, it is easy to understand that there can be no fundamental change unless we start changing our stories.

Identifying the underlying story in the news, in our own actions is the first step in that direction - the ability to see the cultural meme, the archetypes and symbols is also what, in my view, empowers anyone a) to become a good trend watcher and b) to recognize that we can choose which stories we tell, which memes we spread.


The short documentary by below shows personal stories of people who have been hit hard by the financial crisis. People who realized that they have the choice to either remain in shock and feel victimized, or give their personal life story a new positive turn. Very inspiring!



(see related post "How to Cook Up the Future)

Creative Corporate Culture Reality

"Most companies do a magnificent job of smothering the creative spark. Over the past five years we have probed the innovation strategies of 25 organizations in multiple industries and countries. Our findings are simple and somewhat disturbing, given the acknowledged necessity for innovation: Companies usually develop leaders who replicate rather than innovate. Thus rising stars realize that to be promoted, they need to mirror incumbent leaders." From: Finding and Grooming Breakthrough Innovators. Jeffrey Cohn, Jon Katzenbach, Gus Vlak, Harvard Business Review, Dec 2008

Cooking up the Future

How To Cook Up The Future

View more documents from Ines Seidel.

I came up with this little "How to" after thinking about Empowerment.

Empowerment is certainly one of the key words of our time. We see the empowered web-user, the empowered consumer, the empowered employee, the empowered learner,... Empowerment leads to a certain demystification of the expert - the expert is valued not so much because of the facts that she knows but because she can facilitate others to behave in an expert way: teachers are to facilitate learners to teach themselves, leaders are to lead people to lead themselves, brands let consumers create their own brand experience.

What does or could empowerment lead to in the field of foresight consulting? And what is the role of the expert here?

I think that also in relation to THE FUTURE, the expert has to be demystified. Empowerment of everybody is necessary as everybody should understand that THE FUTURE is not something that happens to us, but is instead an experience that we create collectively, by choosing to live one way rather than another way.

Much like a soup can - for better or worse - be cooked by many cooks, we all create the context for the next-moment-experience together. Typically, without being aware of it. Conscious decision making could lead to better results, right?

Learning for Life

When you hear the word „SCHOOL“, what do you think of?
Joy? Encouragement? Acceptance? Trust? Love?

I don’t. Most of us don’t. And I realized how sad that is when I was flying to Helsinki and back last week. Or rather, when I read the newspapers, as I always do on the plane.

Somewhere between Düsseldorf and Helsinki a small article caught my eyes: In Tokyo, parents can track wether children safely arrive at school with a card that originally was developed as a ticket and payment card for public transport. When the child uses the RFID card to check-in at school or leaves a train station, or arrives back at home, the parent is notified with a text message or email. (See here)

Sounds like a good idea for parents? Hm. You could also see it as a service that lives off parental fear, a service that manipulates parents into feeling either “assured” or “worried” without making the way to school safer.

The other piece of news jumped at me and everyone else who passed by a German newspaper stand last Thursday: Tim K., a 17-year-old boy had murdered 16 people in a shooting spree that started at his former school in Winnenden, a small town in southern Germany. The boy was described as “inconspicious”, “average” and “shy” by those who knew him. Apparently, he did not have close friends and some suggested that he had been mobbed at school.

We need better security solutions, more stringent gun control laws, experts were quoted in the news. Other experts said that no security measures could have prevented the killings. It reminded me of the RFID security card in Tokyo: We long for more security, but technological solutions or legal restrictions may not be the answer.

Clearly, for Tim, school had been a place that was associated with problems, frustration, anger and hatred. Better security for the school would not have prevented these associations.
But imagine Tim had associated his former school with joy, encouragement, acceptance. It would have been impossible for him to even think of school in combination with shooting and killing.

For me, the massacre of Winnenden tells more about the current educational system than about gaps in security monitoring.

Schools that encourage children to be responsible actors and creators, rather than victims or recipients, schools where children feel accepted and loved and can develop their individual gifts may sound like a naive dream. Yet, I think societies must invest in these dreams, in educational reforms, school infrastructure and a holistic learning experience. Not only in order to prevent school massacres, but in order to instill creative energy, constructive power and respect for others in the next generation – qualities which our communities and in fact our earth need so badly.

Alternative to Mistrust

Greenwashing, credibility of companies and new trends in marketing have been following me as topics over the last months. If you look at these issues closely, they are all related to trust. What constitutes trust and how do you get others to trust you or your products are topics that fuel research and fill racks of books.
It appears that the more researchers find out about the mechanics of trust, and the more companies or marketers apply this knowledge, the more people feel manipulated. Which makes it in turn harder to gain their trust.

Taken to the extreme this build-up of attack and defence would lead to a society of mistrust.

Or alternatively, to a society were people understand as much (and more) about their usually unconscious decision making processes as neuroscientists and marketing specialists. Given the choice, I would like to live in a conscious society, were people do trust each other but on a thoroughly conscious level. The word "trust" would become obsolete as there is also no mistrust, just clarity.

And as I was reading "The Back of the Napkin" by Dan Roam, the idea of creating a picture story about trust and mistrust formed in, well 3 evenings :-)

Little Picture Book Of Trust

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: trust mistrust)

Beware of the Hippos!

Hippo's are said to be quite dangerous. I've only met them in the zoo, so I don't really know... Well, but there are also other HIPPOs around and they are dangerous, too. Hippo is an acronym for "highest paid person's opinion" and, unfortunately, these hippos tend to kill all other opinions. Sometimes unknowingly, and usually to the disadvantage of that person.

Brandtao wrote that, with one simple rule, P&G avoids the killer tendency in hippos:

Hippos say “I think…” It’s not uncommon for everyone to then fall into line with the Hippo’s view, possibly without even airing their own. Often the more junior clients will have little ability to influence their senior staffer, who has now publicly ommitted to a view, as the boss would lose face and isn’t open to discussion.

In variance to this, one management technique used by P&G, amongst others, during reviews of proposals and ideas with their agencies came to mind. It involves letting the most junior member of the marketing team present at a meeting to comment first. They are followed by the others, ascending in order of seniority; leaving the final comments to be spoken by the most senior person within the team. Sometimes 3 or 4 others may have commented before the Hippo speaks.

This approach has 4 effects.
1. It ensures everyone involved airs their opinion, even the most junior.
2. The less senior staff prove their ability, as they speak before the boss.
3. The meetings are more consensual in feel.
4. The most senior person gets to pick over the arguments and comments expressed by their team before uttering a word. At which point they may unify the response, focus on the most important points and speak with authority and insight that can appear more sage-like.

Sounds like a great meeting recipe that brings out the best in everyone - and makes meetings less of a waste of time (even if they may take longer that way).

Picture: runrunrun/sxc

Idea Dispenser

Jake Bronstein invented a vending machine for fun ideas (the Fun-O-Meter) and tested it at several locations in New York (here it is at Time Square). Read his report at zoomdoggle.

An idea dispenser could be exactly what people in the knowledge economy need :-)

Spotted at swissmiss.

Collaboration everywhere?

I recently made a survey on software facilitating enterprise collaboration - one of my favorite topics. It is a booming field, so I found innovative concepts all over the place. Interestingly, startups with office2.0 applications seem to thrive best under the Californian sun. Sure, there is a lot of software developing going on elsewhere too. But also a lot of wondering, why other regions – Australia, South Korea, India… are still lagging behind. There are many reasonable answers, too, including lack of financial support and entrepreneurial mindset. Nevertheless, I was starting to wonder, if Wikinomics might concentrate in the U.S., at least for the time being, for cultural reasons.

Some evidence:

Prasad Kaipa, executive director of the new Centre of Excellence for Leadership, Innovation & Change at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad said about Indian innovation tactics that the focus is on individual learning and creativity combined with very small research-and-development budgets. In the U.S., however, the norm was teamwork and large R&D budgets. (Prasad Kaipa is cited in Business Week “The wisdom of no crowds”.)

In Japan, people love to stay anonymous on the web. Kensuke Furukawa ("Kensuu") , a Japanese web community developer, stated in his presentation on differences between Japanese and American web communities, that the majority of 2ch users are registered by the name of “nanashisan” which means “nameless” (2ch is the biggest bulletin board service in the world according to Kensuu.)

In South Korea, participation has been part of the web long before the term web2.0, "the participatory web" hit the Western world. Openness, however, another element of web2.0 is still weak in South Korea. At least, this is what Seokchan "Channy" Yun, author of Koreacrunch, pointed out in his presentation Why not Web2.0 in Korea.

Cultural differences do not necessarily have to block the spreading of wiki ways of working. Whoever is developing services or software, should simply be aware of these cultural issues, and design accordingly. As always.

On Strike

German train drivers want more money which makes commuting more thrilling than it already is. A 30 hrs strike is planned this week - and people like me just hope that this is the final show down, before a settlement is finally reached with Deutsche Bahn. (see FTD) Maybe what we'll see also is the show down of the professional category train driver as fully automized trains without any personnel are just getting a free image boost.
A different strike is on the cards in Hollywood: The Writers Guild of America warned studios and networks that TV writers will take resolute action, if they are denied a doubling of DVD residuals. The Time magazine already drew up some implications for viewers:
1) A heavy dose of reality and game shows
2) Late-night ad libs
3) The British Invasion through BBC imports
4) Developing newbies
5) Reruns
That was for TV, the implications for movies would not become visible before 2009
1) Mass immigration of writers
2) More bad movies get a shot
3) Doc stocks: More documentaries
4) Theaters go live
- - Sounds like an interesting experiment to me! Also some advertisers will be open to experiment as some of their TV spending is free to go elsewhere. My, and the TV writers themselves will suddenly have time for brainstorming.
Come to think of it, there are a lot of fields were a little push (or strike) might be all that is needed to unleash creative energy and a wealth of new options. Want to know where strikes are needed most? Check out the discussion at brainR.de (German) and brainreactions.net and take part in brainstorming!