Shawn and I have spent the last couple of days working with a client helping them create their strategic story down in the Mornington Peninsula. There are certainly worse places in the world to spend a couple of days than at a winery in such a beautiful spot. It was a throughly enjoyable off-site, made even more so by working with such an energetic, passionate and fun bunch of people.

During lunch yesterday I noticed that Harry, the guy sitting beside me, was checking his emails, and on his screen was the image below from The Sun newspaper.

Obviously curious I asked him what that email was about. He laughed, and then explained it was from one of his guys who organised the teams lottery syndicate. That night was a $70 million jackpot prize on offer in the OZ Lotto, one of the biggest prizes in Australian lottery history, and as yet he hadn't signed, or paid up.

There was no other text in the email. All the person did was send on this story about how an entire Spanish village won part of a £600 million ($960 million) lottery jackpot apart from one resident who got nothing because he didn't buy a ticket.

That was it. They let the story do the convincing. And it worked.

I've been in San Diego for the past three days - mainly holiday but with two speaking engagements for the annual leadership get-together for Sharp HealthCare. Its one of my biggest ever gigs with over 700 people present for each of the days.

At lunch yesterday with some of the folks at Sharp, one of the ladies from the sound booth asked me to clarify something I'd said. I'd mentioned Ned Kelly and described him as an infamous bushranger (outlaw) who had become something of a folk hero. So, Jill described that the folks in the sound booth were sure I'd said 'Ned Kelly is a famous bushwanker' and she wanted to know if that's what I'd meant to say. This caused a huge outburst of laughter from everyone in the room. I'm 100% sure I said 'bushranger' and explained that 'bushwanker' would be highly inappropriate.

Sharp HealthCare are one of the major health providers in San Diego with 15,000 staff. I was really impressed with them - storytelling is one of their five 'foundations' and much of the day was devoted to sharing both staff and patient stories. Their vision is to be 'the best health care system in the universe'. If you look at this clip by Dan Heath you'll understand why I like this vision so much.

Click to see larger version 800 wide

Check this out.

The young father stood in line at the layby counter, wearing dirty clothes and worn-out boots. With him were three small children.

He asked to pay something on his bill because he knew he wouldn't be able to afford it all before Christmas. Then a mysterious woman stepped up to the counter.

"She told him, 'No, I'm paying for it,'" recalled Edna Deppe, assistant manager at the store in Indianapolis. "He just stood there and looked at her and then looked at me and asked if it was a joke. I told him it wasn't, and that she was going to pay for him. And he just busted out in tears."

At Kmart stores across the US, Santa seems to be getting some help: Anonymous donors are paying off strangers' layby accounts, buying the Christmas gifts other families couldn't afford, especially toys and children's clothes set aside by impoverished parents.

Kmart may be the focus of layby generosity, because it is one of the few large discount stores that has offered layby year-round for about four decades.

These secret santas are also creating a knock on effect.

Lori Stearnes of Omaha also benefited from the generosity of a stranger who paid all but US$58 of her US$250 layby bill for toys for her four youngest grandchildren.

Stearnes said she and her husband live paycheque to paycheque, but she plans to use the money she was saving for the toys to help pay for someone else's layby.

Isn't it great to be reminded of what the Christmas spirit really means.

The full news article can be found here.

One of the things we Anecdoters strive for is to meet new people and have interesting conversations. I had one of these this afternoon.

In the middle of 2010, Danielle DiMasi followed her passion, and forsaking corporate life, struck out on her own and started a business speaking, coaching and training Gen X and Gen Y leaders on business etiquette. A very good idea, especially seeing that everyone else working on business etiquette is a baby boomer with only tenuous relevance to the younger generations.

Danielle blogs for sites like Smart Company and a little while ago I noticed she had started referring to herself as Lady Danielle. So I asked her about it today.

A little tongue-in-cheek, Danielle went online and purchased a certificate pronouncing her as entitled to use the title of 'Lady'. Not surprisingly, this certificate was a fraud and had no status in law. So Danielle dug a bit deeper and discovered that, through an ancient loophole, she could purchase a plot of land in Scotland that came with both a land deed and a title deed.

So she did. in October 2010, Lady Danielle DiMasi became the proud owner of a plot of land in Scotland and her use of the title 'Lady' is recognised in law internationally. Cool huh?

The nice twist is that the block of land is about the size of a small table top and cost a few hundred dollars. Danielle also bought one for her partner who is now a Lord.

If you have young execs needing some rough edges taken off, Check out her website.

Did you ever think the good old movie training montage, found in such classic's as The Karate Kid, Team America, or the Rocky movies, could beautifully sum up all the elements of deliberate practice?

I have been doing some work over the last few weeks on developing a 'Deliberate Practice Program' that will help to make learning stick even more for participants in our programs such as Storytelling for Business Leaders.   

As my mind was very much tuned into the whole area of 'practice', I watched a scene from The Kings Speech last week with added interest. The scene was a montage where Lionel Logue (played by Geoffrey Rush) and Bertie (Colin Firth) were undertaking a series of exercises and drills to help the future King overcome his speech impediment. What I realised is that I was actually watching all the elements of deliberate practice.

Deliberate practice is a concept outlined by Dr. K. Anders Ericsson, who is is widely recognised as the world's leading researcher on expertise. He has studied how people become experts in a whole range of fields, and looked for the consistent attributes of what they do to make them achieve these superior levels of performance. The consistent feature they have identified is not some natural born talent, or the hours they practice, but how they practice - specifically how they undertake deliberate practice.

The key attributes of deliberate practice are:

• Repetition - Performing the task occurs repetitively rather than at its naturally occurring frequency
• Focused feedback: - Task performance is evaluated by a coach during performance
• Breaking the task down into its parts and practicing these individually and then as a whole
• Immediacy of performance - After corrective feedback on task performance there is an immediate repetition so that the task can be performed more in accordance with what is required/expected
• Stop and start- because of the repetition and feedback, deliberate practice is typically seen as a series of short performances
• Active coaching - Typically a coach must be very active during deliberate practice, monitoring performance, assessing adequacy, and controlling the structure of training
• Emphasis on difficult aspects - Deliberate practice will focus on more difficult aspects, for example, when flying an airplane normally only a small percentage of the flight time is taken up by takeoffs and landings. In deliberate practice simulators, however, a large portion of the time will be involved in landings and takeoffs
• Focus on areas of weakness - in real life situations people are striving to achieve the task and therefore are unlikely to do the things they see as a weakness or they think will stop them achieving. Deliberate practice therefore allows time and space to practise these elements
• Work vs. play - deliberate practice feels more like work and is more effortful than casual performance

Now, watch the following clip from the movie 'Cool Runnings' and tell me how many of these elements exist?

I had a throughly enjoyable afternoon on Saturday learning not only how to make great coffee, but being surrounded by stories.

The course was a present from my wife for Christmas and took place at the Home Barista Institute, just round the corner from the Anecdote office here in Melbourne.

The course was delivered by Rita Zhang who began by telling a fantastic 'Who am I' story. She told a series of shorter stories about how she fell in love with coffee, how she used a mentor to help her develop her business and how she started teaching courses on coffee. She brought to life each of the scenes in real detail (e.g. describing a sunny Saturday afternoon when she went and visited a 'bright spot' coffee shop that her mentor recommended), she used suspense and surprise in the stories (e.g. how she lifted up a takeaway coffee from the same shop and discovered a love heart drawn in the latte foam) and also linked them together to create a cohesive account of how she came to be there, teaching that course, on that day. These short stories gave a fantastic insight into Rita and where her passion for coffee came from.

Stories were also included in two other aspects of the course.

Each of us had to introduce ourselves by telling stories of good and bad coffee experiences we had had. After seven years in the UK I had no shortage of bad coffee stories! It was a nice way to be introduced to the other attendees and hear a bit about them and why they were there, in a very non-threatening and insightful way.

Stories were also used by Rita to bringing to life the history of coffee, right through from how coffee was discovered (the story of the 'dancing goat'), through to how Pope Clement VIII played a key role in coffees acceptance into Europe in the 1600s.

Overall a fantastic day, not only because I was learning how to make great coffee (which now requires some serious practice on my part!), but also because I was reminded, yet again, about the power of stories.

I stumbled across a blog post yesterday from Bob Sutton where he referred to the 'Otis Redding Problem'.

This is where you put in place too many metrics to measure individuals, teams, or business units. meaning they can’t even think about all of them at once. They therefore end-up doing what they believe are important or that will bring them rewards.

This is based on the line from the famous Otis Redding song Sitting By the Dock of the Bay; “Can’t do what ten people tell me to do, so I guess I’ll remain the same.”

This triggered a thought for me about how you could potentially use musical artists, lyrics or song names in an exercise.

Say you wanted to explore levels of engagement within a team or department. Asking straight out is unlikely to get you an accurate picture, depending on the culture, environment, who is present etc.   

What you could do is get groups to come up with, say, a written 'Playlist' of songs that sum up levels of engagement for them within the team. Or you could give them an iPod and get them to actually create one and play it back to the room.

Maybe instead you could introduce them to the 'Otis Redding Problem' and then get them to come up with their own examples within the team, based on song lyrics.

I just think this type of method allows people some safety and security to "discuss the undiscussable". It allows them to distance themselves from openly expressing how they feel, and the dangers that presents, just as archetypes or metaphor exercises might allow. It also creates a bit of fun, and lets people express some of their creativity and musical knowledge!

Anyone ever used anything like this and wanted to share how it went? Or does anyone have their own ideas on Problems/Dilemmas/Scenarios in the 'Otis Redding Problem' vein? Love to hear your thoughts.

Its that time of year again. I opened the post office box this morning and found it brimming with wishes for the festive season. Its a great time of year to reflect on the relationships we value and to reach out and connect with them.

Shawn and I want to thank all the great people we have worked with and had coffee and conversations with during the year. It has been a big year for Anecdote. We have welcomed Kevin Bishop into the Anecdote team. We have delivered projects with great people: Patrick Lambe from Straits Knowledge; Victoria Ward, Paul Corney, Philip Gibson and the whole team at Sparknow; Andrew Fookes from Phenomenology; Michael Craner at 2M4Ward; Tony High from Insight Learning; Josh Burns our talented video guy, Christian Dahmen - our trusted advisor (our thoughts are with you Christian); Peter Ernest from Values Journey; Helle Norgaard; Terrence Gargiulo at Making Stories; and Pat and Nathan at Inspire9. There are many others and I trust they will forgive us for not naming them specifically - but they have all contributed to a successful year for Anecdote.

We are very excited about the impending launch of Zahmoo, our 'story bank' application. We are using it internally already and once we finish user testing it will be available for use by our clients. We also see Zahmoo as a great way for every family to capture and store their family stories.

To all our family, friends, colleagues and clients...best wishes for a safe and happy festive season and we wish you all the best of health, happiness and success for 2011.

from the team at Anecdote

Dave Bruebeck, the jazz virtuoso, once said "there is no mistake if you can resolve it."

I was reminded of this quote when Steve Hopkins told me this story about what happened at World Vision around the time of the Haiti earthquakes.

I went to school in Canberra at Ginninderra High School. Amazingly I still keep in contact with so many of my classmates from back then and this year I'm part of the organising committee for our 30 year reunion to be held on the 6th March 2010.

One of the incredible things that have happened in preparation for this shindig has been the creation of a Ning website where we now have over 70 classmates swapping stories, pictures, and making or renewing connections.

If you are one of my classmates from year 10, 1980, Ginninderra High School, please send me an email (shawn@anecdote.com.au) and I can invite you to join us at the reunion website.

And if you know anyone who graduated from Ginninderra in 1980, please pass on this note so we can reconnect.

People respond so differently to new ideas. While some people jump with excitement at the thought of new possibilities and irrational ideas, unfamiliarity can others uncomfortable, give up, or find it safe to be a skeptic. This is so well illustrated in this conversation between Alice and the queen in Through the Looking Glass.

"I can't believe that!" said Alice.

"Can't you?" the queen said in a pitying tone. "Try again, draw a long breath, and shut your eyes."

Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said. "One can't believe impossible things."

"I dare say you haven't had much practice," said the queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

One of the things we talk about a lot is the power of 'little things' to make a difference in a complex environment. I saw the sign in the photo on the counter of a cafe earlier this week. If you can't read it, the poem goes like this

Smiling is infectious, you catch it like the flu
When someone smiled at me today I started smiling too;
I passed around the corner, and someone saw my grin;
When he smiled I realised I'd passed it on to him;
I thought about that smile, then I realised its worth;
A single smile, just like mine, could pass around the earth;
So if you feel a smile begin, don't leave it undetected;
Lets start an epidemic quick, and get the world infected

The building in the left foreground of the image is the historic Hyde Park Barracks Museum in Sydney. The building at the back behind the tree is an extension to the equally historic NSW Lands Department building (right of shot). Apparently there was great care taken and no expense spared to ensure that the brickwork of the extension was an exact match for the brickwork on the Hyde Park Barracks building. "Not very successful" I hear you cry! The story goes that after the extension was completed some bright spark decided to steam clean the brickwork on Hyde Park Barracks, revealing the true colour of the brickwork and leaving the unsightly mismatch shown in the photo.

Matt Moore, a good friend of ours, kindly offered to write a poem about Anecdote.

So that he had some material to work with, Matt suggested that all of the Anecdoters keep 'experience' diaries for a week. At the end of each day, each of us wrote down our most memorable emotions from the day (joy, surprise, frustration), and things we saw, heard, smelt, tasted and touched. At the end of the week each Anecdoter had the chance to go back over their experience diary and choose what they wanted to share (with Matt and/or other Anecdoters).

Here is the poem Matt has written inspired by our comments:

The Long Tale

Once upon a time,
a long way away,
there were five stories.
It has been said that
there are only seven plots
in our word world
but all I know is that
there were these five stories.

Each story started off as a whisper,
a rumour then a rumour of a rumor.
As each story was told and retold,
it grew and grew and grew.

There are boy stories and girl stories,
grown up stories and baby stories
(and just to be clear on this:
a boy story is not the same
as a story about boys).

Boy stories are loud and blue.
Their ends are loose and untied.
Events happen with little thought.
a blur of testosterone and muddy knees.

Girl stories are more considered,
in the pink not necessarily rose-tinted.
Their details finer, their voices are softer.
They need light and air as much as boys.

Old stories are wrinkled
with layers of circumstance.
They have been passed from mouth to ear to mouth.
Some say that the old stories are the best.

Baby stories are never fully formed.
They sit in bits and grow in fits.
Their meaning hardens with the calcium of time
and you can never tell how they will turn out.

Once upon a time,
there were five stories
and although they have started,
they aren't finished yet.
Listen.
---

Thanks Matt, we love it! What do you think readers?

...is the byline of Smith, an online storytelling community that provides a space to read, write, and share stories. Just over twelve months ago they posed a challenge to the community that was based on the famous $10 bet that Ernest Hemingway rose to conquer - that he could not write a short story in six words. His pithy and evocative response: "For sale. Baby shoes. Never Worn." shows that a story does not have to be long and complicated to deliver a punch to the emotions. Over 15,000 people took up the challenge, delivering funny, eloquent and addictive results. Smith have just released 852 of the best of them in this book Not quite what I was planning.

It says a great deal about our willingness to tell our stories, no matter how small. I also seem to find writing to a specific set of directions is always a lot of fun and obviously I am not alone in this. Smith describes the book as "the most literary toilet reading you'll ever find".

And my mini-memoir? It's late. Make up your mind.

A news item just in from the US.

NASHVILLE—In what onlookers described as an epic war for conversational dominance, girlfriend Amy Soisson, 28, clawed, battled, and interrupted her way to complete control of an anecdote started Wednesday by her boyfriend, Greg Harvey, 29. According to sources, Harvey was in strong command of the tale's settings and plot points until a brief hiccup in detail gave Soisson an opening to pry custody of the anecdote from Harvey's still gaping mouth. After several futile attempts to recapture the story at its climax, a weary and broken Harvey fell again and again to his girlfriend's ruthless strategy of speaking over him in increasingly louder tones. The long and arduous contest of wills reportedly concluded with Soisson ascending to the rank of sole storyteller, forcing Harvey to retreat to the kitchen and share the anecdote with friends there.

[the Onion]

In case you haven't seen the faces of Anecdote, here's our Christmas 07 photo. You can read our short bios or take a look at our updated company profile.

And here is what the Christmas party really looked like. Suggested captions are welcomed (what were Mark and Robyn illustrating?)

During a workshop I was recently involved in, I introduced the story spine to a couple of participants to help them to tell a story using the simple framework.

Not only did they embrace it enthusiastically and use it to great effect, unexpectedly the framework was adapted for a different purpose. A small group of onlookers decided to use it as the basis of a reflection activity. They did a great job, and I think it worked really well.

Here's a quick summary of how it might work for you:

1. All participants of the group sit in a large circle
2. The facilitator asks participants to reflect on an activity (in our case, we were reflecting on our involvement in a year-long training course)
3. The facilitator begins by reading out the first part of the story spine, 'Once upon a time...' or 'Way back when ...'
4. The person to the left of the facilitator is then asked--without rehearsal or preparation--to develop the story further by providing a brief sentence or sound-byte
5. This continues around the circle with each person adding to the story until the facilitator feels that it's time to intervene with additional structure from the story spine. When they feel it is time the facilitator will add the next line i.e. 'Everyday...'
6. This goes on until the story (as defined by the structure) is complete.

I recommend that you record the story so that you have an artefact or keepsake, or for transcription purposes. Because of the impromptu nature of the activity this was a bit of an after-thought for us. We did try to record the story using a mobile phone, but I'm not sure that it worked very well. I haven't heard anything!

The 'story' that we ended up with didn't make too much sense in the end, but that is unimportant. What is important is that the improvisations made it a lot of fun, and it also elicited lots of memories and anecdotes. It was also nice to reflect back on our shared experiences and to make sense of what happened as a group, as a collaborative activity.

I was waiting for a flight the other day and I happened to catch 5 minutes of a surfing documentary featuring Kelly Slater, 8 times world champion. So what has this got to do with a blog on business narrative I hear you ask?

Well, when talking about his 7th title win, he tells an amazing story. I'll try and retell it (although I'm sure that I won't do it justice) ...

Expectedly, he had surfed his way right into yet another championship final contest. However, he was beaten comprehensively in the first heat of the final, even though he thought he had surfed particularly well. Angry with himself, and distraught at the thought of losing the title, he had to come up with a strategy to make an assault on the title in the next two rounds.

Realising his predicament, he took some time to ponder the situation. There was clearly a lot riding on the next heat. He wondered whether he should perhaps 'try harder'. But he soon realised that this would not work, he had to do something more. He had to pull the proverbial rabbit out of the hat.

What did he decide to do? He made a conscious decision to 'let go'-to stop trying so hard and to go out there and just have some fun!

And the result? You guessed it, he came out and scored two perfect 10's in the next two rounds, with some awesome rides, one where he visibly nearly comes off the board twice! Just incredible.

What amazing courage in the midst of all this chaos to trust his instincts and follow his heart and not his head. I think there is some important wisdom in this story that is applicable to other areas of life.

When was the last time you or your organisation just 'let go' and had some fun? What were the results?

There is a trailer for the documentary here if you're interested.

Research company IDC says that 39.7 billion person to person emails buzz around the world each day. Hardly surprising given that I have worked in organisations where people used email to arrange meeting for lunch with someone two desks away. That's why I like what's happening at INTEL a lot. Three weeks ago 150 of their engineers participated in the first of what will be ongoing "Zero email Fridays". They haven't banned email entirely. It's a month long trial that's designed to encourage people to phone each other or meet up face to face. The idea behind this is, of course, that it will encourage more direct, free-flowing communication and and a better exchange of ideas. Getting up and walking across the corridor to talk to someone is a simple activity that contributes to building personal networks.

And if you feel that you have 39.7 billion emails or thereabouts sitting your inbox calling your name, you might be interested in the concept of email bankruptcy espoused by Lawrence Lessing on WIRED, where you can simply refuse to work through that truly frightening number of emails you are hoarding...most of which are awaiting action or a reply. Just hit the Delete button and start again with a clean slate. What's your take on it? Would there be significant consequences if you declared email bankruptcy today? Have we become too email dependent? Anyone like to join me in deleting the entire contents of their inbox?

For those of us who have struggled with another piece of new technology.

My undergraduate degree was in archaeology and I love learning about how information can be presented (Edward Tufte
is my information presentation hero). So imagine my delight when I unearthed this website that peels back graffiti palimpsests in New York, LA and San Francisco. What's most interesting is how the graffiti walls are presented as a timeline that you can explore showing the paint spattered walls changing over time.

Technorati Tags: information architecture

I rushed out of the house at 'oh-dark-hundred' on Monday morning for a three and a half hour drive to run a workshop for the day, followed by a two and a half hour drive in the evening to be in location for Tuesday. About 20 minutes from home I realised that my mobile phone was sitting safely on my bedside table - D'Oh! It was too late to go back and get it so I resigned myself to missing the long drive as an opportunity to make a heap of phone calls.

During the drive I realised that I already had a cool communications solution in the car with me. I pulled over and connected to the internet through my laptop using mobile broadband. By using a hands-free headset and Skype Out I was then able to call people and talk to them while driving. It worked surprisingly well.

Scott McCloud ...

Traditional Western art and literature don't wander much. On the whole we're a pretty goal-oriented culture. But in the East, there's a rich tradition of cyclical and labyrinthine works of art ... they (Japanese comics) so often emphasis being there over getting there.

As facilitators, that's what we need to encourage -- being there over getting there!

Far too often does the “get on with it” ghost appear out of nowhere, demanding that we 'cut to the chase'. After all, 'time is money'. These types of messages are also reinforced by the mass media, suggesting that successful people “just do it” and that the frantic pace of modern life requires us to be efficient and economical.

But efficient and effective are two entirely different things.

It never ceases to amaze me, how -- in this quest for efficiency -- we (I say we, as I too have been guilty of this) lose sight of our humanity, attending meetings or working in groups without ever really connecting with others in the room as human beings. Instead, we tend to go about our 'business' like robots or machines: mechanical and routine. Rarely -- one could argue -- is this effective. In this Dilbertesque world how do we achieve anything meaningful?

Well, we need to learn how to wander more, individually and collectively. So, when planning meetings or events for effective collaboration, don't underestimate the need for people to feel 'safe', to explore and to have a sense of belonging before they are really willing to share and contribute.

That's why good facilitators use appropriate icebreakers, warmups, energizers, or whatever you might like to call them -- those activities for getting groups going. Whilst a lot of people might cringe at the thought of doing something 'silly', it is really important to do. People need time to connect, relate, to understand each other, and these types of activities can kick-start that process, as long as the activity is appropriate for the context. For example: a group of alpha males in a business setting is going to require a different approach to a mother's support group!

If the group has assembled with the ultimate goal of solving a problem, or getting something done -- then by all means it should get on with that task -- but only after some time to enjoy fellowship in order to bind their experience.

Remember, it's all about the journey, not the destination. So enjoy the ride!

Last night I met Cris Pearson, CEO of plasq, a small group of passionalte software developers. We quickly discovered a shared interest in storytelling, albeit from different perspectives.

Plasq develop an award-winning software program called Comic Life, which is a program designed to create comic strips or arrange photos into a scrapbook. Mac users may be familiar with the product, which due to its success, it's now bundled with new Intel Macs.

Cris told me a story about teachers using Comic Life in schools to teach kids storytelling techniques. I wonder if similar techniques could be used by employees to create comic storyboards that communicate product ideas and concepts effectively to stakeholders? Such an experiment with digital storytelling would be a great way of heightening an aptitude for Story (and just as important, having some fun along the way!).

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I’m reading Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn. It’s a terrific book. This story struck my funny bone so I thought I’d share it with you.

Each day an elderly man endured the insults of a crowd of ten-year-olds as they passed his house on their way home from school. One afternoon, after listening to another round of jeers about how stupid and ugly and bald he was, the man came up with a plan. He met the children on his lawn the following Monday and announced that anyone who came back the next day and yelled rude comments about him would receive a dollar. Amazed and excited, they showed up even earlier on Tuesday, hollering epithets for all they were worth. True to his word, the old man ambled out and paid everyone. “Do the same tomorrow,” he told them, “and you’ll get twenty-five cents for your trouble.” The kids thought that was still pretty good and turned out again on Wednesday to taunt him. At the first catcall, he walked over with a roll of quarters and again paid off his hecklers. “From now on,” he announced, “I can give you only a penny for doing this.” The kids looked at each other in disbelief. “A penny?” they repeated scornfully. “Forget it!” And they never came back again.

Check out the original Bob Dylan version.

Have a look at this funny take on the recent election slogan adopted by the NSW Labor Party: “More to do, but we're heading in the right direction”

(hat tip to Victor Perton)

Last night I went along to a talk by Guy St. Clair held by the KMLF and VPSCIN. I found Guy’s topic of knowledge services quite interesting. Guy comes from a libraries background but now takes a wider view of how to integrate information management, KM and strategic learning.

One idea that stuck was the reason Guy called his work ‘knowledge services’ and not ‘knowledge management’. As we know, knowledge management is not easily understood by executives. It seems too nebulous. But executives have had plenty experience in obtaining services: legal services, accounting services, catering services. So why not ‘knowledge services’?

Do you like my old library catalogue card? I created it with the Card Catalog Creator. Thanks for the link Patti.

From the time of the first bound books, right up until the 17th century, books were shelved with their spines facing inwards and the pages facing out. There was a practical reason for this seemingly perverse practice. Books were typically bound in leather and the technology for decorating a book was primitive. Bookmakers applied embellishments to the front and back cover but avoided the spine because it had to bend and flex and created problems when you affixed adornments.

So how do you know which book is which on your bookshelf when you can’t see the spine? Well, you decorate the fore-edge (the paper) of the book—much like you did with your school books. And if you’re a renaissance book collector you engage an artist to decorate your outward facing pages. This is what Odorico Pilone did when he employed Cesare Vecellio to decorate 172 of his books. Here is an example of this beautiful work.

So how does all this relate to Kathy Sierra’s excellent post on how to use your Moleskine notebook to keep your life in order? I’ve been a Moleskine users for a few years now and have a small collection of completed notebooks. I found it difficult to label the spine on a Moleskine so I simply reverted to the pre-seventeenth century practice of shelving the notebooks with the fore-edge facing out and decorating my fore-edges with the dates I started and finished each notebook adding a simple label for reference. Here they are on the left.

Petroski, H. (2000). The book on the book shelf. New York, Vintage Books.

Bob Hruzek over at Middle Zone Musings is kicking off a story writing contest tomorrow, with a difference: best story wins but it can only be six words long. Bob was inspired by Hemmingway’s shortest story: “For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.” and has asked John Koetsier and I to be judges. I look forward to reading your submissions.

Luis Suarez over at ELSUA has just tagged me in a virtual cocktail party. What does that mean? I gather that when you’re tagged you tell five things people might not know about you, then tag five more bloggers. So here are five things people might not know about me.

• My original degree was in geography and archaeology and my honours thesis was titled “Mid-channel shoals in a macro-tidal environment—Ord River, Western Australia”.
• My first business was called Callahan, Fox & Associates and we wrote guidebooks for national parks, ran a photographic library and did geographic information systems (GIS) consulting for the Defence department. We went broke.
• I love reading biographies of scientists, artists and explorers.
• My first knowledge management project (1996) involved helping the Australian Geological Survey Organisation catalogue their scientific datasets and discovered that the greatest challenge was to get the scientists interested in the task. We wrote a paper about our experience.
• I’m both a US and Australian citizen. I was born in Beaufort, South Carolina. I’ve lost the southern accent.

So here are the people I would love to know more about:

Nancy White, Kathy Sierra, Bob Sutton, David Maister, Leon Gettler

I was at the Salesforce.com Christmas drinks a couple of weeks ago and as part of the entertainment we watched a few short films. All the films are available at www.niceshorts.com.au but there was one in particular I thought you might like because it illustrates how we build stories to understand people and how often we are wrong in our first assessment. The short film is called Cross Examination.

Metaphors are powerful for understanding what makes people really tick. Forget asking people what they think about a situation; ask them what comes to mind regarding how things really get done around here when you see these three characters?

Each character is from Arthur’s The Organizational Zoo, a humorous collection of animal metaphors depicting people in workplaces. Great for helping people see their workplace from an entirely new perspective.

I have a confession. I love stationery. Dave Snowden calls it the stationery gene and I’m sure it’s firmly embedded in my DNA. So I’ve been enjoying peaking into Notebookism which seems to be all things stationery and I marvelled at a recent post on the world’s thinnest pen, the Uniball Signo Bit 0.18 mm gel pen. Great for writing on rice I believe. There must be a way to use one in my next project .

The guys over at Signal vs Noise have it right. Fun is not at the other end of serious. You can have fun and be serious, creative, engaged, productive. Large companies are the worst offenders.

It’s a false choice, not a real fight. And you accept its premise at your own peril. Fun is all about creativity, innovation, play, experimentation, progress, and seeing real things come to life. If you make fun an enemy of business, you’re judging all these desirable concepts by association.

Having fake fun outlets won’t help either. Goofy Friday outfits or a monthly karaoke night are not a suitable substitutes for letting fun be a part of every day work.

The guys at www.blogday.org has asked bloggers to list 5 blogs you love reading. Well, here are my five:

• http://www.vpscin.org/ – all the happenings in the Victorian Public Sector
• http://37signals.com/svn/ – all about online services
• http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/ – the author of the no asshole rule
• http://davidmaister.com/blog – on professional services
• http://gladwell.typepad.com/gladwellcom/ – new ways to look at the world

If you want to see all the blogs I read, visit:

http://www.bloglines.com/public/unorder

About two weeks ago my wife entered and won a Toastmasters humorous speech competition. Her winning speech was “searching for a soulmate”. It was about looking for a dog (thankfully not a new husband).

 I’ve noticed how much people warm to dogs. Okay I might be a dog person, rather than a cat person, but if you have a dog and go for a walk in a neighbourhood I’ll guarantee you will have a lot more opportunities to meet people than if you just walk alone. People who take cats for walks are just weird. But like I said, I’m a dog person. Anyway it’s got me thinking about a previous post Are organisations losing their humanity? And maybe there is something we can learn from dogs. Something that might help. Here’s a list I came across, author unknown.

• 1. Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joy ride.
• 2. Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstasy.
• 3. When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.
• 4. When it’s in your best interest, practice obedience.
• 5. Let others know when they’ve invaded your territory.
• 6. Take naps and stretch before rising.
• 7. Run, romp, and play daily.
• 8. Eat with gusto and enthusiasm.
• 9. Be loyal.
• 10. If what you want lies burried, dig until you find it.
• 11. When someone is having a bad day, be silent. Sit close by and nuzzle them gently.
• 12. Thrive on attention and let people touch you.
• 13. Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.
• 14. When you’re happy, dance around and wag your entire body.
• 15. No matter how often you’re scolded, don’t buy into the guilt thing and pout…. run right back and make friends
• 16. Delight in the simple joys of a long walk.

Funnily enough, about 3 weeks ago I joined a library which still has in its constitution the acceptance of dogs in the library! I wonder how organisations might be different if we could take our pets to work? Hmmm. Maybe my shaggy bunny tendencies are starting to shine through a little toooo much now.

Stephen Colbert, the comedian who brought us the devastating roast of George W. Bush at the 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner, has outlined how you can be an expert in anything. Good advice for people wishing to fine tune their bullshit detectors. Here are Stephen’s 6 headings. Check out his article in Wired for the detail instructions.

• Pick a field that can't be verified.
• Choose a subject that’s actually secret.
• Get your own entry in an encyclopedia.
• Use the word zeitgeist as often as possible.
• Be sure to use lots of abbreviations and acronyms.
• Speak from the balls, not from the diaphragm.

[thanks to Les Posen for the link]

What happens when you cross a well known Improv guru with a company passionate about story? You get a new workshop, of course!

With Izzy Gesell coming all the way from the USA to Australia in November we have worked together to design a new workshop called “Change your story Change your world”. How story telling and Improv Theatre skills can help you honour your past, understand your present and shape your future. We’ll be running this workshop in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. Check here for dates. Don’t miss out!

I’ve always has an admiration for anyone who can display complex information simply. This is why Edward Tufte’s books, like Envisioning Information, are among my favourites.

Nerida Hart sent me this link which I think you’ll find impressive: http://www.gapminder.org/

Nerida, when are you going to get a blog so I can link to this cool information you send me?

Professor Gervaise Germaine from the Free University of Munsterburg provides a lucid description of the difference between data, information and knowledge in this short video clip. The new knowledge transfer device is a obvious breakthrough (I suspect further design will be required on the device’s styling).

It seems to me that the word ‘survey’ is often clumped together with other words like ‘mother-in law’,‘cane toad’, ‘pestilence’ and maybe even ‘microsoft’. For all that we hate surveys they are still a powerful way of getting things done. There is definitely a science and an art involved in producing a ‘good’ survey.

For anyone putting together a survey, one thing you will need to do is design your questions. The language that you use can have a big impact on the response rates which you get on your survey and also how ‘threatened’ people may feel answering your survey questions. Here is a humourous example (albeit adapted from "Asking questions") of some different ways to ask the question: “Did you kill your pet cat?”.

A. The casual approach:

“Did you happen to kill your pet cat?”

B. The numbered card/option approach:

“Please choose from the options below which correspond to what became of your pet cat”

(1) Natural death    (2) I killed him    (3) Other (what?)

C. The Everybody approach:

“As you know, many people have been killing their pet cats these days. Did you happen to kill yours?”

D. The “Other People” approach:

(1) “Do you know any people who have murdered their pet cats?”

(2) “How about yourself?”

For a bit of fun I have created an Anecdote apparel shop on CafePress tonight. You can also buy an Anecdote coffee mug.

This clip sums up how crazy things are getting,

Looks like we had one of our articles published in The Daily Anecdote. This newspaper clipping generator is a bit of fun.

Who is Anecdote anyway?

1. Do not do business
2. Reduce your activities to zero
3. Don't leave the house
4. Don't call
5. Don't talk to anybody
6. Stay in bed
7. Close your eyes
8. Stop breathing

This list comes from a German business magazine which devoted an issue to complexity in business. You will need to be competent in German to read the articles but Walter Baets provides a short summary.

Thanks to Walter Baets for the links.

From YouTube. Driving in India. Mesmerizing!

The New Yorker is having its yearly cartoon caption contest. I noticed that anyone outside the US is uninvited so I thought we could have the rest of the world represented here.

So in 25 words or less what caption would you write?

Here’s the cartoon.

Add your captions to the comments. I’ll post the first one.

This is an incredibly good exercise to develop your right-brain aptitudes.

UPDATE: The cartoon has moved so here it is:

My old friend David Pope drew this cartoon (and 2 others) for a paper we wrote in the mid 90s. I still get a chuckle out of it. Some of our “let’s capture all knowledge and put it in databases” friends should take a look at this one!

In the style of The Office, here’s a short video detailing how not to use storytelling in your organisation. And a good laugh too. Just scroll to the bottom of the page to find the clip called ‘Principles of Organisational Storytelling’.

Thanks to Julian Carver for pointing this out to me.

I need your help because I’m a little stumped. Michael Wagner in a comment exchange here has asked for some ideas on how to learn about Australia. I’ve pointed him to Peter Garrett’s Australia Day speech where he describes the things you might do with an overseas visitor but I’ve realised I don’t have a good answer and was hoping you might suggest some good books or web sites.

Last night a group of us had a great time going to Melbourne Playback Theatre. Playback theatre belongs to the family of Improv and the way it works is that a director/facilitator stands between the audience and the stage (with the playback crew) and invites stories from the audience. These stories are then brought to life by the playback crew. No rehearsals, nothing, pure improvisation. It was great! Both Shawn and I were able to share a story and have them brought to life. Sure does give a different perspective on your experience…

Having a read through complex knowledge I came across this interesting quote:

Now you probably also know that we love reading Scott Adams’ blog. Anyway, Scott Adams recently posted a humour formula. He suggested that to be funny you need at least 2 of 6 elements, and to be reaaallly funny, you need up from 4 – 6 of these elements. Then you’re really humming. The elements are: Cute, Clever, Cruel, Naughty, Bizaare and Recognisable.

What do these two have in common? I adapted the figure below, drawn from chaos and complexity theory to give some insight…

The figure shows 3 key zones -“boring”, “getting a few laughs” and “this is seriously funny!”. Reflecting, I think, some elements from both Scott Adams humour formula along with bifurcation and bisociation.

The important thing is that getting multiple views of a situation can not only be fun but it can help to reveal insights into problematic situations. Jokes and humour form a natural narrative for managers and organisations. I guess again I’m saying to deal with complexity keep it simple and make it fun! 

Scott Adams, of Dilbert fame, does make me laugh. He has a blog which is just as funny and insightful as his cartoons. Worth dropping by for a chuckle.

A recent profile on Women business bloggers only listed about 5 women business bloggers. I was sure there must be more, and I was also curious whether women bloggers are the quiet achievers in the blogosphere…So using a tool which can value blogs I thought it would be fun to look at where women stand compared to a couple (*) of leading male bloggers: Tom Peters and Seth Godin. The results seem pretty clear….

It seems to me that there is a growing dissatisfaction with the standard conference model of panel presenters and an audience full of possibility who are just listeners.

I’ve put together the following (very incomplete) timeline:

• Dave Winer's unconferencing March 2004
• Gang of 3's podcast on unconferenceing (Johnnie Moore, Chris Corrigan and Rob Paterson) July 2005
• Paul Goodison's take on unconferencing July 2005
• Ton Zijlstra's observations on DIY conferences August 2005
• Nancy White's blogwalk September 2005
• Phil Windley's unconferencing October 27 2005
• Shawn Callahan's observation on ActKM abandoning it's conference October 30 2005

Sitting in conferences I have often looked around at the audience and thought about the incredible opportunity for discovery which lies within. Unconferencing certainly looks a great model for engaging this potential. One key question which I do wonder about is: what is the role of the keynote speaker? I do like The Gang of 3's idea of keynote listeners, however I’ve also seen the impact that great keynote speakers have had on audiences (and hence the conference) too….

I’m a lover of Moleskine notebooks. Perhaps it’s their history or their sturdy design. Whatever the attraction I always have my notebook handy. I see they now make a storyboard version. This will be great for sketching out scenes and brainstorming presentations. Sadly my stationery weakness is a curse ;-)

A great little book which I’ve been working my way through lately is Improv Wisdom .

There are some great wisdoms for life in this book, like the following four:

• “Say Yes”
• “Be Average”
• “Make Mistakes, Please”
• “Take Care of Each Other”

From an organisational perspective I often wonder about the “Say Yes” maxim. It seems to me that there is a culture in some organisations where the person who actually does practice the ‘say yes’ maxim is somehow considered inferior or weak, a walk over. I remember one of my first jobs working as a systems administrator. Saying “No” seemed to be a lesson in self-preservation, a protective mechanism against drowning in the overwhelming demands from everyone important in the company. Like the book suggests, however, it is often when we “Say Yes” that we find ourselves in the most interesting, unexplored and unchartered territory.

I wonder what culture change might occur in an organisation which considered and took seriously the above 4 maxims….?

My first ‘real’ job had me helping a few really talented guys build a software system designed to book cars for our parliamentarians. Not all of our ideas were implemented. I remember suggesting we fit each car with a global positioning system to enhance booking accuracies. This suggestion was howled down by our client because for some reason parliamentarians weren’t too keen on the idea of people knowing the exact location of their chauffeured-driven car—go figure.

Bruce Mcleod was our leader in this venture and was influential in introducing the team to Hunter S. Thompson—a great ideas man. A couple of weeks go Hunter died and Bruce tracked down what he thinks might be Hunter’s last published piece.

ESPN.com: Page 2 : Shotgun Golf with Bill Murray

My first ‘real’ job was working as a research assistance at the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies. We had a similar setup for our Tektronix terminals taking snaps of primitive geographic information systems.

[Thanks Seth]

Thanks to Bill Gibson for this one.