14 unique clocks

This is quite an interesting overview of very unique clocks. I love the whiteboard clock - design every day a new clock. I tried to order one but they are not shipping to Europe. Mmm, maybe I'll have to buy one next year on one of my US-trips I guess.

Beautiful - drawing in sand - timeless

It's quite incredible what this lady does with sand.

Here you'll find the video.

It reminds me of a poem that a participant of the 'Week without clock' shared with us:

“The mind is like the wind, and the body is like the sand;
if you want to know how the wind is blowing, look at the sand."

Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen

Week without clock

On November 14th, 11 people go to a big house in the 'Ardennen' (Belgium) for the experiment - a week without the clock organized by Mieke Koldewee and Cyriel Kortleven. No clock, no laptop, no mobiles, nothing that can distract us and bring us in contact with the clock. And the experiment is a big succes. At 18:18 the clock was banned and experience time took over.

The NO-W-ALL gets created with all kind of questions, challenges, offerings, and nice-to-know-things about all kind of time perspectives. Our special cook Raoul (who appeared to be a natural zen-master) makes sure that we don't have to worry about food and he creates lovely and healthy food whenever we are hungry. Groups are formed and split again; theoretical models are build and the body takes over; deep conversations where we listen hard to each other; the heart takes over and the mind gets silent; self-reflection is mixed with easy-going exercises and all kind of movies about time. We loose the clock-time completely and have no clue at what time we get up or go to bed. People sleep, eat, walk, draw, talk, dream, reflect, play, write, read, use their fantasy, ...

For me, it's one of the biggest presents that I gave to myself in the previous years. Deepak Chopra was aboslutely right when he said: 'Yesterday is history, tomorrow a mystery, but today is a gift, that's why it's called the present!'

Nice article - climbing mountain of now

Nice article about the mountain of now and all the obstacles we finf on our way when we want to climb the mountain: illusions, excuses, judgement, the past and the future. All kind of obstacles that keep us away from the now.

And a nice picture of an ad that I found in the subway of London.

The mysterious DJ

Absolutely one of my favorite you tube movies. Would be quite cool if we could stop the time sometimes and go back a few moments and then change something small ;-)

Enjoy the movie here.

Art of Hosting Berlin - the chaordic field

I am just back from a four-day training - the Art of Hosting - in Berlin. It was absolutely a great experience to work together with more than 45 people around meaningful conversations. We experienced methods like WorldCafe, Open Space, Appreciative Inquiry, circle work, ... and applied them on very powerful questions.

I'm starting to call myself an experienced facilitator but being an host of such an 'event' goes a step further. Because we were in Berlin and it's 20 years after the 'Berlin wall' came down, we worked around the topic to bring our inner walls down that keep us seperated. I liked the part about the chaordic field because it relates a lot to the creation and innovation work that I do. The chaordic field is the area that emerges from being between chaos and order. That's where the deep learning happens. It's also the field of not knowing (U-theory). When a system/society puts too much attention on order, you get a system of control. And that's a very rigid system but a big part of our current society is build on control. The other side is too much chaos and then you get into the destructive chaos. New awareness and solutions emerge from the chaordic field. This field is also sometimes related to the groan zone - you feel resistance, you don't know what you're doing, you want to step out of the process but this is the moment where you need to be self-confident and have trust in the process.

I recognize this zone a lot in creative sessions. This is the moment where the 'logical' ideas have been harvested and people get stuck in the ideakillers (yes, but; too crazy; not fo our clients; ...). The best ideas are found if you can 'survive' this groan zone. I have been in the groan zone a few times during the intense training - struggling with my mind and emotions; not knowing what I should do but every time I got through it and discovered a very nice insight. The next picture (the result of an open space session outside) is maybe the answer on the question - what will you discover if you bring your inner walls down?

(quite funny to become conscious -just now- that this graffiti image was made on a wall -the Berlin wall??? behind a fence)

I can absolutely recommend this experience to other people who are interested in exploring really deep conversations and want to learn all kind of methods and a philosophy to host big groups with powerful questions. Thanks to all the great participants and the art of hosting team who helped me to break down some of my inner walls and discover the beauty of some other walls that represent my values and strengths. And thanks to the Hub Berlin for being such a nice host for this event. Very interesting concept for all self-employed people out there who want to become part of a bigger community.

Back to the past - black/white camera

I'm just back from a few days visiting Barcelona and a very nice project Can Nova. In Barcelona I was playing a bit with my camera (and selecting some different colors) and you get immediately an effect of going back into the past. When you look at the pictures, you can imagine that you travelled back in time (to the thirties or forties) and be a passer-by.

And sometimes you get a special effect - especially the pigeon in the front looks quite bizar. So maybe you can do some time-travels yourself when you edit some of your holiday pictures.

How naked are you prepared to be?

Nic Askew is many things. Film-maker, storyteller, musician, composer. I discovered his work through a friend who said that I would like his stuff. And yes, ... it is absolutely very powerful and touching.

For me, Nic is a great artist and every movie has a specific message. Not a moral message but a message that makes you wonder, reflect, think, feel, ... You can find his stuff on Soul Biographies where he captures the experience of being human. He make you laugh and he makes you cry. I have just watched a movie where he interviewed Dominic Miller - guitarist of Sting (a more famous person or is he also just a normal guy) about the story that's out there waiting to be told by you.

How naked are you prepared to be?

The ages of female energy

They have asked me to 'facilitate' a track on a creativity conference in Greenwich next week. The purpose of the track is to give a short introduction on the topic, work 2 hours with a 1/3 of the participants and have a creative presentation at the final day to 'summarize' our insights. The track that they asked me to facilitate is 'power and influence'.

My first thoughts were 'Mmmm, is this really my thing because 'power and influence' don't look to fit in my portfolio where I focus on creative skills, experience time and interaction with bigger groups. But my creative attitude 'stimulated' me to postpone judgement and let the topic rest for a while. My first associations with power and influence were linked with hierarchy, authority, dominion, strenght, reaching goals, superiority, leadership, a person showing muscles, ... all more masculin associations. But then (after a while) other associations became present ... networking, connecting, guidance, impact, effective, standing straight, openess, listening, ... a bit more feminin words.

By the way masculinity and femininity have nothing to do with the difference between men and women. Everybody has the potential to develop both kind of skills. And we absolutely need both sides of the paradox. In the last decades, we have developed a society with male energy where things like efficiency, a high status, planning and goals, logical thinking are appreciated. And a lot of these things have helped us to get prosperity and a wealthy economy but at this moment, it looks like the balance is gone. Too much male energy leads to a society that is rigid, political and hierarchy battles, loss of the humaninity in a lot of processes. And if you look at the world at this moment, the economic system is in a crisis; people who still think that they can go on with only masculin skills are struggling to survive; organizations

And apparently, more people think that we need more female energy into our system. Two weeks ago, I was on the future summit where 4 futurists gave their vision on the next decades and in all of their stories, the importance of a better balance between femininity and masculinity was mentioned. So I'm quite sure that the whole system needs more female energy (caring, loving, listening, waiting, developing, connecting, ...). Keeping those things in mind, the track 'power and influence' becomes more appealing to me and I would like to explore - together with the other participants - the topic power and influence from different perspectives. I will keep you updated.

Pecha kucha presentation 'Time to NOW' in Maastricht

No time to be a pessimist

I hope that this is already old news for most of you but I just saw this video about the biggest artwork ever – the movie ‘Home’ from Yann Arthus-Bertrand. Absolutely fabulous so I’m not going to spend more words and discover it for yourself (movie lasts 1,5 hours but it’s the best time investment that you can do).

The art of doing nothing (and everything)

Yesterday, I went to an IAF-conference (International association of Facilitators) in the Netherlands and the main theme was '3 times nothing'. The purpose was to explore the value of doing nothing at certain moments in a training or workshop. And the consequences that would have on your group. Some facilitators are convinced that you as a facilitator are responsible for the outcomes of a group. I don't think that's true, you are responsible for the process and setting the right atmosphere where a team or group of participants can discover new content or work towards a common goal. So it is not necessary as a facilitator to be responsible for the content and keep a discussion or flow going. Some facilitators start to work very hard if the participants are a bit more passive. But of course, they love it if the facilitator is going to do the work that they should do. So at the conference, all the workshops had something to do with 'nothing'. In the first workshop, I was in a group were we explored two different paths - one content part - what is nothing, why does it have an added value, ... and a very nice dialogue started about this topic. But a second path was more reflective and personal. They challenged us to not do something at certain moments. Eg if you wanted to add an example to a discussion, don't do it and see what it does with yourself. You could write down the thing that you hadn't said or done on a paper and decide if you would share this paper or not. So what was very interesting to notice a different track of discussion on the papers.

It became a bit chaotic because some people could only concentrate themselves on one track. So there was getting some tension in the room and some people were almost at the point of leaving the workshop. For me it was very interesting to notice the balance between calmness and tension and it became clear that nothing was exactly in between. If I would react to the tension to relieve it, then the 'nothingness' was gone and if I would do anything, probably some people would have left the workshop. So how far can you go? That's probably different for everybody but I think it's also an art - the art of doing nothing (and everything). In a lot of cases, when you do nothing, you are probably doing a lot somewhere else. So the topic is still going on and we didn't come to one conclusion and I guess that's very good. Leave the open space so nothing can happen ;-)

A new idea for a few minutes of your time

Through a colleague, I found a very interesting and creative businessmodel. Christine Santora and Justin Gignac are a couple from New York City who started with quite a special project: they have defined some wants for example - an Iphone, chicken wings, some sleep, ... and they create a painting about that need (so they paint an IPhone or some chicken wings). The price for the painting is exactly the price for the item that they want. So if you buy 'a slice of peperoni', then you have to pay 3 dollars and they buy it and enjoy it.

They have a list of things that they want and also a list of things that they already have. It's quite funny that they already went to Vegas and people have paid for their hotel, some gambling money, an all-you-can-eat-buffet, ... and people have paid for each item and got a painting about the item instead. More info about their project here.

This is real entrepreneurship for me and let me take you a step further. If they can do it (and even find some customers), why don't we expand their model and use it for your own profession. Eg, if you are into music, maybe you can make a song about your wants? I am a creative facilitator so I will come up with ideas about a topic that I want and sell my ideas for the 'real' stuff. So I want to have an old pocket watch, I can do a brainstorm about this topic and 'sell 100 ideas' to get an old pocket watch - worth 100 dollars?

And going even further, you don't have to want physical things. I want to have contacts in the communication and event business in cities like New York and London so for every contact that I'll get, I'll send you an idea to broaden your own network. Mmm, very interesting concept, I let it grow a bit further and maybe I start my own 'idea-shop'.

And why not selling ideas for a few minutes of your (clock)time, if we can trade ideas for money or for contacts, then we can also trade ideas for time to spend with each other. You will get ideas how you can spend more time with friends, if you spend a few moments with me ;-)

A timeless moment

A very nice moment ... unexpected, nice story and emotional.

Britains got talent - 2009 - singing woman

Earth hour - the big picture

I discovered this blog just a few minutes ago -The Big Picture. They show news stories in pictures from big events that have happened in the world. I immediately subscribed. And I also found this series of pictures of Earth Hour and I quote their text to explain it:

"Started in Sydney, Australia in 2007, Earth Hour quickly grew into a global observance. More than 1,000 cities in over 80 countries observed Earth Hour 2009 on Saturday March 28th, as homes, office towers and landmarks turned off their lights for an hour starting at 8.30 pm local time to raise awareness about climate change and the threat from rising greenhouse gas emissions. Collected here are a series of before-and-after photographs - which (starting with the second one below) will fade between "on" and "off" when clicked."