Month Note (lol) - 27 April - 24 May 2024

Are month notes a thing? I feel they should be a thing...

I've been sitting on this for a few weeks now, so this update will exist somewhat of a composite of experiences and ideas over the last month.

First of all: a shout out to Audree Fletcher who cosmically prodded me the other week and helped me to drop a lot of thoughts in draft form. If you don't follow Audree, go now and check out her writings.

So, where to begin?

Re-epiphanies

This month I had a re-epiphany (the term I use for when you forget the first epiphany you had and then have the exact same breakthrough moment a second time - it’s equally frustrating and glorious). 

The first epiphany is the realisation that I love to “smoosh” things together; taking seemingly disparate things and imaging what happens when they come together to form something new and wonderful.

For me this shows up lots of different ways:

• Using Lego as a tool for creative conversations to help groups of people connect more deeply
• The exploration into the use of theatre-based methods, art and storytelling to change behaviours in business
• Bringing diverse people and disciplines together for a PechaKucha night
• Criss-crossing communities - design, business, legal, sustainability and spotting patterns and intersections... 

Something connected to all of this is the word “exaptation”. It’s one of those words that's oddly so uncommon, it still has a red underline under it when you type it...

They define it as: "Any feature that performs a function but was not produced directly (purposefully) for its current affordance.". For example, I see this as the paper cup used as a pen holder on a desk. Applied to the above you can see how smooshing leads to some interesting and creative directions to explore...

The Emergent Futures Lab has a wonderful blog series which dives into this and more around creativty as emergence and challenge the use of the term "mindset" which has been quite influential recently. You can see more exaptation in this blog.

I'll move on to some highlights over the past week... Looking back there is definitely a running thread around storytelling...

Theatre of the Oppressed

I promised an update on this a few weeks back. So this was a session run by Julian Boal and Katy Rubin grounded in the work on theatre of the oppressed.

The day itself was a mix of warm-up games before moving on to group work to develop scenes playing out a power dynamic. What stayed with me was to focus less on the people, and more how those people are playing out power dynamics and systems of oppression that act on both an oppressor and the oppressed. I was reminded about the words of Nora Bateson who talks about "double binds":

“a pattern that’s like a Catch-22, a situation where there seems to be no solution or escape.”

How do we recognise these situations and how do we react and work with these intractable situations when we feel so often compelled to find a solution all the time.

I'm still a novice in this space, but feel there is a recurrent pattern in my interactions which keep coming back to the role of theatre as a way to explore power through storytelling. I have a hunch that there is more to explore here to explore how these methods could support businesses on the move towards becoming more regenerative, to dive more deeply into how organisations are formed, run and develop especially for people and planet. Again, shout out to David Aula who first planted this seed a few years ago...

Heard Storytelling

Daaaaamn. The team at Heard Storytelling continue to smash it out the park with their events. For background, Heard is a Manchester-based storytelling agency and community run by Caroline Dyer and Colette Burroughs-Rose who put on speaker nights over at Feel Good Club .

They've helped so many people to craft stories that truly, truly resonate and, while a proverbial emotional rollercoaster, there is something rejuvenating in the shared space and catharsis with humans being vulnerable with each other.

Camp Digital

I went to my first Camp Digital in Manchester the other week, which is run by Nexer Digital . It was lovely to connect and reconnect with friends working in the digital and design space, some of whom I'd not met in the flesh since connecting a few years back! The talks are now online here.

Doughnut Economics

The Manchester Doughnut Economics Collective is alive. You can read more about about what it's about from the first sessions in this post from Graeme Heyes Ph.D. .

There are so many interesting directions of travel that we can go down with this work. I've been inspired by the essential neighbourhood-level work that CIVIC SQUARE are working on through to the influence at a policy-level at places like the West Midlands Combined Authority. There is tremendous potential and it's great to see the likes of Graeme, Carl Quinn and Eve Holt involved.

I suppose we first need to actually map the doughnut for Greater Manchester?!... 👀

If you want to hear more on doughnuts, comes to PechaKucha Night Manchester Vol. 38!

Northern Design Festival

I wrote about this the other day, but to re-emphasise, it's lovely to see more design events springing up in the north.

Random tip of the week

As anyone who knows me, I love sending voicenotes (although inflicting might be another way to describe it… 🫢). 

I also love talking through experiences to help untangle my thoughts. To pause for a moment, I’m ever grateful to the friends who have given up their time to listen and help me process stuff. Particularly Joanna Adjetey De Palma who once withstood my 20-minute tangent where I had to talk about the origins of Christianity to explain a work problem... Sorry, Jo.

Anyway, to spare my friends, I’ve smooshed something together and started recording voicenotes to myself*. Simply, pick a problem, put on some headphones (to look like I’m on a call 🥸), and go for a 20-minute walk. 

I don’t think I’ll ever listen back to what I say, but these constraints of exercise and committing to a recorded medium has been really useful for processing. Give it a go!  

*Typing this makes it sound like Alan Partridge, but it's not, I promise. Well, maybe, a bit…

Eloise Smith-Foster

A special shout-out to Eloise Smith-Foster . You know when someone explains really clearly what you’re about, or striving for better than your own words?... She did that for me with this podcast!

Tom Kerwin and Corissa Nunn

Another shout out to Tom and Corissa at Trigger Strategy Group for this gem of a podcast. Two people, out for a walk, talking about design, strategy, complexity. For those of you baffled by the truly esoteric language in the complexity and systems space, this is like having a friendly translator at your side...

Warhammer-watch

I have found another service designer who dabbles in Warhammer. If you are, or know, someone, in this space, please connect. We can get a tournament going!

So far I have Phil Hesketh and David Robson...

Question...

Does anyone know anyone who is working on any research on putting nature on the board and the impact of that on businesses? I feel if I had time I'd do a Masters in this and stakeholder governance, but for now I'm keen to connect with anyone exploring the space...

Until next week/month/year/decade! Bye.