Ann Oliveri

Don't Stand Still

No guts, no glory.  In tough times, you need to place all your bets on your future, your unique brand event, and forge ahead.  

Like TED, the Vine Conference is morphing.  While TED is going global and year-round, Vine is going personal, offering up smaller, more intense salon experiences, starting with a day-long collaboration on community design at IDEO.

Limited to 75 people, the November 17 workshop is a unique opportunity to experience IDEO's design thinking process, applying user-based design solutions to the challenge of building sustainable communities.

Fast Company magazine named IDEO “the world’s most celebrated design firm”. And for one day, it can be ours.  How cool is that? 

The event will be held at IDEO in Palo Alto, starting at 11 a.m. and running through dinner.  To register, download the pdf below.  The early bird deadline is July 31.

Download Vine-IDEO-Salon

We-Think

Charles Leadbeater joined The Vine Conference this year, first wandering around the roundtable discussions as an observer, then wandering around the platform as a thought provocateur.

How many speakers promise that, but then fail to deliver?

Leadbeater's premise, sketched out here and demonstrated in the way his book, We-Think, evolved, is that mass collaboration can unleash mass creativity and innovation.

Leadbeater's genius is not in creating the concept or the software of mass collaboration. His genius is observing the art of self-organizing enterprises and reducing  lessons learned to a few metaphors, such as comparing free agent pebbles and institutional boulders, asking if you are a pebble or a boulder, and how you can take on attributes of the other. 

Building on that story, his next empathized with managers forced to share office space with giant boulders that they must push around every day, and their employees deployed as birds weighed down with pieces of that boulder, yet required to fly.  Leadbeater suggested that managers should be tasked with strategically scattering birdseed, attracting birds to where they need to flock next, not pushing around institutional overhead and process.

And, although he did use PowerPoint, it was to show us photos of his house, illustrating his opening story, crafted to engage his audience of homebuilders, architects, and community developers.  No slide had more than one word.  The embedded YouTube video, he proudly acknowledged as a breakthrough for him but judged lame by teenaged son, was an animation of his ideas. 

But then again, this was not a lecture or a motivational speech. We were expected to improve on anything he had to say, and one fabulous question did knock him for a loop. 

Great fun!  In the next few weeks, video of The Vine presentations will be posted and I will give you a heads-up when they are online.

Defy Convention

A glutton for punishment, I am returning to the subject of music at meetings.  Just because I failed once to explain how engaging all senses makes events memorable, doesn't mean I can just let it go.  So here's an even more obscure take on the subject.

Music and the arts have been both a backdrop and a counterpoint at the first two Vine Conferences, but this year's program fully integrated the arts into the experience by being created in the moment.  Improvisation was both a subtext on a theme of innovation and experimentation as well as a demonstration of creativity.

On the opening evening, pianist Michael Jones and cellist Stephanie Winters teamed up for the first time, channeling each other and the audience, to create music.  We were not allowed to applaud, and that proved the most difficult part of the experience.  Both musicians, however, stayed on for the next two days, participating in discussions, and resurfacing at the close with an even more remarkable musical contribution.

I can't explain it, but it felt like we as a group were the instrument, reverberating with what we had created as a group and expressed, especially by the cellist Stephanie Winters, in their final performance.  The musicians had tried to tell us how we fed them while on stage, but words only approximated what we all could finally sense at the end, the sound swamping you like a deeply resonant sonar.  It's how I imagine schools of fish or pods of whales must communicate.

Okay I am not a fanciful person nor do I listen to whale songs, so how can I account for this response?  And where do I note it on my meeting evaluation form?  Can't you just see the survey check box choices ranging from "Left me dead inside" to "Connected me to the universe?"  All I can say is that at this conference, music and poetry and film were not entertainment.  All provided transportation to meaning-- without rhetoric.

Anyhoo, I am grateful that Greg Fuson had the foresight to provide us not only with the latest CDs from Michael and Stephanie, but also a copy of Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks.  Although I am a long time fan of Sacks, I had not yet read Musicophilia, and I am still working on it.  I hope his stories provide a way to engage those tone deaf to music's power and language, but open to redefining ways of creating shared meaning.

Alternatively, you could just skip music and host iPod dance parties where everyone listens to their own music but dance together in the space you provide.

"Me We" Muhammed Ali 

WeBay.com

What if EBay and its subsidiary PayPal diversified their offerings, repurposing their extraordinary platforms to one that allowed us to exchange our time and expertise for the greater good?

Let's call the new platform WeBay and PayForward.  

Groups, high rise apartment buildings, and associations could maintain their own 'store,' private labeling the software as a portal for members, but all would benefit from being connected to a larger universe of volunteers.  Individuals could simply add a community service widget to their desktop to get local alerts and updates. Logging in to your account, you could:

• Find out about a community service project in your area that could use your help today;
• Earn credits for being a good neighbor to either cash in for your favorite cause or donate to others;
• Build a personal reputation for expertise, reliability, service; and,
• Track your level of community involvement, earning points for what you do, and comparing your achievement with others.

That was my big idea at The Vine earlier this month during the business incubator session.

Our group proposed an enterprise called CommonHarvest.org that mobilized community gardening projects on urban vacant lots, high rise rooftops, and common space in new communities.  It was aimed at fighting childhood obesity through nutrition and gardening while supplementing municipal budgets to maintain parks and open space. 

But, what got attention, was the online platform we proposed that put service into the social media equation.  In fact, other groups at The Vine grafted online community onto their ideas to solve the problem of enrolling and engaging volunteers.

Our basic pitch was that while we all want to help our neighbors, most volunteer opportunities require too big a commitment for too little satisfaction. Using an online platform minimized the 'institutional overhead' of participating in community service groups, churches, and charities.

The achievement-oriented capitalists in the room really liked the frequent-flyer style earning potential.  Like EBay, fees could be required of 'sellers,' charities paying WeBay a percentage of money raised or flat fee for every donor acquired.  And, those fees would still be a lot less than their current acquisition costs.

The progressives at The Vine were drawn to the fact that everyone can play, such as seniors with limited mobility contributing expertise in gardening online, even though the physical labor is beyond their abilities.  If you are also in this camp and don't curl your lip when saying the words 'community organizer,' imagine repurposing the social media used on my.barrockobama.com for ongoing neighbor-to-neighbor community service.

So what do you think? EBay just announced a 1,000 employee lay off.  Maybe they'd be interested in this product line extension.

What if we were all community organizers rather than concierges for association members?

What Color Is Your Parachute?

If your parachute isn't golden, you might be looking for some help finding your way to your calling, your next career move or your legacy.   So here's an exercise that not only helps you look in a mirror, but to see yourself as others do.

Try this at a meeting to create greater self-awareness and groupsourced career counseling in less than 30 minutes. Alchemist Chris Grant designed this exercise for The Vine and called it resume unbound. 

Giving us five minutes, Chris had each of us write out two or three phrases under three headings on a single piece of paper:

• my values at work
• the value I add
• skills, characteristics and qualities.

Then, you and the person sitting next to you take five minutes to exchange resumes, explaining what you have written before standing up and wandering the room holding your partner's resume.  In the next five minutes, you must talk to at least three people, pairing up to ask what they would do if they could borrow the person you represent for a year.   With surprising answers in hand, you return to your original partner to download life-altering career suggestions.

My partner was the ultimate blend of Jim Collins and Deprok Chopra.  He came back with three suggestions for me:  run a think tank; be a facilitator and consensus builder; or become a community organizer.   Works for me and it makes a much better elevator speech!

Contacts and Context

Don't let reality ruin your day.  That might get some people through, but the members who show up for your meetings this fall are looking for a lot more.  Contacts, to be sure, reconnecting people in a support group to survive the giant sucking sound of the U.S. economy, but also context, a larger historical perspective with a light at the end of the tunnel.

Last week, a few speakers at The Vine provided that counterpoint.  Ric Burns, documentary noir brother of Ken, served up incredible images of New York City in 1972 that looked more like History Channel footage of a bombed-out Dresden.  New York was bankrupt and literally abandoned when then president Jerry Ford blew them off.  Burns distilled New York's DNA to its historical roots in soul-less commerce and then, in an aside casually tossed off, mentioned the secret to its resurrection: immigration.  The sobering reflection was a stark reminder of our resilience.

Of course, to be honest, another doom and gloom speaker, an economic historian, was a disaster, dishing up data to define the scale of our current situation without providing any insight to help find our way out.  Okay, in response to a sole, brave question, she did offer up a dazzling synthesis of Charles Dickens' Bleak House, noting how far we have traveled in the last hundred years, but I am not exaggerating when I reveal that our muse created a black hole late in the day, absorbing all light and oxygen in the room. We moved on, but it was a challenge.

Now, a week later, I am grateful for the highs and lows engineered into the event.  We were better for being tempered by reality, yet never surrendering to it.  Your members are your allies, and more than capable of hearing the truth, the good and bad, better prepared to start over. 

What's the alternative?

In A Word

Last week at The Vine, four different ringleaders--speakers much too passive a word to describe their role--asked us to come up with one word.  It was never redundant or lame, but propelled us forward.

Chris Waugh from IDEO had us turn over our oblong, laminated name tags to write the one thing we couldn't live without at the top and one thing we wanted to do before we die at the bottom.  Then we swapped with a neighbor and each drew the other's portrait in between.  We are all more creative than we believe and most of us sported recognizable cartoons that certainly started conversations.

Facilitator Chris Grant later had us each select a number from one to five, grab one of the sheets of paper at the center of the table from the rainbow of options, fill in the blank of one of five statements with one word, and write it as large as possible on our sheet.  Then, like-color paper found each other, regrouped and shuffled the words into one sentence, clipping the words on clotheslines to enclose the space.  Here's my yellow paper group's sentence:

ORGANIC HAPPINESS comes from CONNECTION and LISTENING with POSITIVITY and SILENCE.

Later that morning, Steve Gross who runs PROJECT JOY, asserted that playfulness was the key attribute for children to grow and recover from trauma.  He then pushed us for our word.  He breaks his word into four domains--reminding us that no one will believe you unless you have domains: joyfulness; social connection; internal control; and active engagement.

Finally, slam poet RIVES (sounds like reeves), created a video of interviews with participants over three days, asking three questions, including 'what's your favorite word.'  The best answers were the silliest, like Life is good(R) co-founder John Jacobs ' favorite word: PIE.  

My one-word answers included:  FRIENDS. ORGANIC. CURIOSITY. GIGGLE.   Like the smell of home, each word triggers cascades of memories, conversations, play, and deeply held convictions. 

What's your word?  How can you combine with others to start important conversations?  

I Don't Know

This year's Vine provided three days of suspended animation.  With the economy in free fall and no one in charge, we were detached, but aware.  Remarkably unencumbered with nothing to lose and everything to gain.  And it hasn't quite worn off yet.

Rather than a bunker mentality, this eclectic group went skydiving, holding hands to form a pattern before letting go to reform.   Every day reality intervened, slamming us into the ground, but then we looked at each other and said let's try that again. 

Before we started, Chris Grant, the facilitator at The Vine Conference, set up the safe space with great care to the room layout, lighting, and design.  Stories set the agenda, including learning Chris' secret to dealing with a room of Type A CEOs.  He makes them stand, approach each participant and just say: I don't know.  He said if you do it for a good five minutes, they start to lose it.

So here's your moment of zen.  Just say, I don't know.  Better?  Now start reconnecting with people in more genuine ways.  You're going to be relying on those relationships to move through the next eighteen months and who knows, we may all realize that people are the whole point.

The Other One Percent

This week, The Vine Conference convenes, thanks to the intestinal fortitude of the the people at PCBC, the California Building Industry Association, and sponsor James Hardie. How is your association stepping up in this economic crisis?  Are members turning to you to find a space to regroup, to find their footing? 

Imagine having time to imagine the next stage of your life, the next incarnation of your company, the next opportunity for creating sustainable communities.  Now imagine engaging in that activity with some of the most creative and inspiring people you have ever met.  That's The Vine and I will be blogging from there later this week.

Below is the email message I got today from Greg Fuson, cultivator of this event.  (He's the guy in the photo with his daughter Anna in his arms, inspecting The Vine graphic wall we created at the PCBC show last June.)

"If alien anthropologists were to study our behavior and try to figure out what our highest priorities must be, they would probably conclude that we strange, fragile humans are dying to resolve things like:

“What clothes do I wear today?”

“How do I weave through traffic faster?”

“How can I cram more stuff into my multitasking?”

“What will happen next on The Office/Entourage/Desperate Housewives/fill in the blank?”

"This is, after all, how we appear to spend 99% of our time.

"The Vine is about the other 1%. It’s not often we go there, especially not in conferences. But this coming week is different.

"In just a few days, you’ll be among some of the brightest minds in community creation — not only those who build communities, but those who animate them as well. You’ll share perspectives, conversations and meals with a fascinating mixture of visionaries, including some recently added guest speakers:

¡ Marianne Cusato, a pioneering architect and designer of the Katrina Cottages

¡ Nate Garvis, Vice President of Government Affairs for Target Corp.

¡ Toby Israel, a visionary founder of the new field of Design Psychology

¡ Steve Gross, founder of Project Joy, an organization that uses the power of play to heal children sidelined by trauma

"So I encourage you, between now and Wednesday ... take a deep breath ... do your best to clear your mind of nagging distractions ... and bring with you questions, ideas, aspirations, possibilities, and a willingness to share them.

"It’s going to be an illuminating and exhilarating three days in San Diego. We look forward to hosting you!

"Yours in community, Greg Fuson, Cultivator"

Getting Better

In advance of this year's Vine conference, cultivator Greg Fuson sent participants a copy of Atul Gwande's book, Better.  Like Malcolm Gladwell, Gwande is a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine and half this collection of essays first appeared in those pages.

Better, like baseball, is about failure, about paying attention and improving performance. To illustrate these ideas, Gwande follows extraordinary efforts to eliminate polio in India, to reduce battlefield casualties, and the cultural mores on medical examinations, among other stories.  What you learn about is respect, trust, obsessive attention, heroic effort, and ways to gain confidence in one another.

Beyond great cures, improving performance holds out our best hope for, well, getting better.  For example, the single most effective method to improve is to avoid spreading disease by washing your hands.  So simple, so obvious, but so difficult to consistently do. One example of success is a product of Jerry Sternin's Positive Deviance method of listening to the community and making vigilance everyone's job, including hospital patients reminding anyone entering their rooms. 

No matter what role you play, what job you do, you can do it better.  This book is about the challenges and rewards of accepting responsibility, facing mistakes, and owning the job of making life better.  Reading it makes you feel like the second string player begging the coach to send you in, not to try to make a difference, but to move the ball forward.