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."

This is the end

And also the end of Internet. Enjoy your day.

Discovered a spooky pub in Brussels

Quite close to the 'Grote markt' from Brussels, you can find the quite morbide pub 'Le cerceuil'. You have to get in through a small long pathway - very dark - and then you get to a dark spooky place where you can drunk from skulls and enjoy 'dark music'. You can put your drinks on the 'coffin-table'. Wooeeeeeaaahahaaaaaahahahahaaaaa ...

Nice event about coaching - Belgium

A colleague of new shoes today is organizing a very nice event for people interested in coaching.

Have a look at http://www.newshoestoday.com/site/we/more_we/Martine/14maart2009/

It will be in dutch.

I'll be there and also some Knights of NOW!

new inspiration blog

At the end of March, I'll be going to the US to do some workshops there (I'm probably visiting Atlanta, Chicago and New York). For the workshop in NY, I'm working together with Amy Frazier - a friend from Seattle. And we've set up an inspiration blog. Have a look at the inspiration wall.

How do you get into the NOW?

A few weeks ago I did a Time to NOW workshop and we made a NOW-all (or NO-Wall) with all kind of activities that people do to get into the NOW. Here are the responses that the participants gave. What do you do to get into the NOW?

Making love; headset and music; taking a shower; dance; lean backwards with head in your neck; looking at chickens; having an aperitif; go running; standing in my garden and looking to the horizon; treat my feet, just muddle a bit; tell a story to my kids; play football; read a book; go swimming; go and get a bread with my bike - even if the other bread isn't finished yet; walk to the back of my garden; making a risotto; do the dishes; stretching; reading the newspaper; doing a sudoki that's just too difficult; clean some stuff; play with the kids (if they're in the mood); tacking pearls; sewing; smoke a cigaret; take a bath; following yoga; cooking; give a big hug to my children; flower arranging; listen to the radio; diving; drinking a coffee; meditate; wander around; shop; draw with a pencil; closing eyes and enjoying the moment; seeing the sea in my imagination; making a fruit salad and breathing.

Keep the sun in your hands

Today's menu

Twitter - faster and shorter

Curious and inspired by some colleagues, I started to twitter. Twitter is a service for friends and all the people who would like to know to stay connected through the exchange of quick messages. They claim that they are the 'solution' between sms and blogging. People say what they are doing at this moment.

My first idea was: nothing for me ... people don't have to know what I'm busy at this moment. And it gives the impression that we have to speed up even more. Why would anybody want to know what somebody else is doing right now.
If you're doing something important, you can follow a blog or get a mail or text message but apparently, more than a million of people think different. For me it's a bit of an experiment but also curiosity. Twitter can also be linked to other technologies like facebook and plaxo and I saw that a friend from the US was coming over to Europe. Normally you wouldn't share that kind of information because he was only here for a few days and in another country but coincidently (or not) I had to be in that country the same week. Now, it didn't work out to meet each other but the chance of meeting each other became bigger. And a very good blog from Erno Mijland (in dutch) also posted a good blog about twitter so that convinced me to give it a try.

So now you can follow me everywhere anytime (if I want to share where I'm going ;-)). And I'm thinking about a new technology - Twaiter where you can only post one message a year.