Creativity: Basic Principles (by Kim Hermanson)

Kim Hermanson, an author we like so much, just tweeted on creativity principles. Here is the link to the source of this lines. Thanks so much, Kim!

I discovered these "principles of creativity" on a handout I made for a workshop I led ten years ago (yikes.) In any case, I believe they still hold up:

• Creativity comes from the heart. Our hearts are what inspire our creativity. Listening to the heart's wisdom, we have the courage to do something different, try out new directions and explore new terrain. Creativity happens when our heart is moved and inspired.
• Creativity needs space, both internal and external. One of the biggest blocks to creativity is having our psyches clogged with unfinished business. A simple walk or time spent in nature can give us space and a fresh perspective, or simply stopping to close our eyes and take a few deep breaths.
• Your creative spirit needs a big vision. When we make things too small and focus on the mundane and trivial, we lose juice and life becomes boring. We can focus on problems, or we can focus on our big vision. We have a choice.
• Creativity is nourished and fed by beauty. Nurturing environments and nurturing people.
• Creativity is centered in you. The creative ground that you stand on is outside of the institution that you work for. Your own creative ground is comprised of your loves and passions, those things that you value and hold most dear.
• Creativity is unique. Your response to any situation is unique. Your perspective is unique. And your creative expression is unique.
• Creativity is bigger than you are. In the midst of a creative project, you don't know what the end result is going to look like. It's a lesson in letting go, to let your creativity take you in a different direction than you expected.
• Creativity comes with "Beginner's Mind." Beginner's Mind means not acting out of habit. It means having an open mind and perceiving what is happening with fresh eyes. Be willing to not know.
• Creativity means having a relationship with the world. Creativity requires participation--stepping out of our "bubbles," engaging with whatever it is that we are passionate about.
• The movement of your life is toward learning and creative growth. Life always presents us with continual opportunities to learn and create.

So good advice, thanks Kim!

Eleder BuM31    Buru-mapak-Espazio Irekia-Sormena  
www.burumapak.blogspot.com (eus)   @Eleder_BuM  (Twitter)

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OPEN SPACE: Peggy´s favorite video (16´)

U S WEST Open Space from Peggy Holman on Vimeo.

Peggy Holman tells us on the OSLIST the story...

How about another telecommunications company story? It was my first real experience of Open Space. The company was US WEST and the year was 1995. There had been floods in Arizona and serious outages. It was also a time of transition to high bandwidth technologies so little investment in the old copper phone lines had been made. The system was in bad shape as a result. And to complicate matters further, union contracts were being negotiated behind the scenes.

A union rep, Bill Mahoney, who also worked with Open Space, convinced the head of the state organization to try Open Space. I was part of a corporate group and got involved. We contacted Harrison and ran a 2.5 day Open Space called "Discovering Priorities". It was a wild event! The majority of the participants were network technicians -- the people who climb telephone poles. (When they were made of wood and people still climbed them.) They had a colorful vocabulary, with more 4 letter words (curse words) than I'd ever heard before!

The outcome: people not only worked out how to deal with the aging technology and get back to reliable service (a high value for the company and among the many veteran employees), but long-time broken relationships between groups were mended. My favorite example:

People from two departments who were always fighting met with each other. They discovered that their performance goals were written in a way that by definition put them in conflict. They worked out a manager swap, where they'd have first-line supervisors trade jobs to learn about each other's businesses. And of course, renegotiate goals that supported the success of both groups.

Another favorite moment: about a week after the Open Space, a meeting about next steps occurred. Rather than just managers, it was opened to anyone who wanted to participate. A number of the union people -- network technicians -- were there. One of them said, "let's hire contract workers (non-union labor) to handle the daily stuff while we rehabilitate the basic plant." This would have gotten him shot before the Open Space! What had happened during the OS was people had a chance to learn more about how everything worked so rather than making decisions from a narrow perspective, this suggestion was based in having an understanding of the whole system.

This is the event where I fell in love with Open Space because I saw the needs of individuals and the whole both met.

And I'm happy to report that it is on video. It's still my favorite video about Open Space all these years later. The Open Space Institute US, through Harold Shinsato, put it on Vimeo about 8 months ago:
http://vimeo.com/25251316...

Peggy

 

Eleder BuM31    Mind Mapping-Open Space Technology-Creativity

www.burumapak.blogspot.com (eus)   @Eleder_BuM  (Twitter)
www.in-fluyendo.blogspot.com (esp) www.flowandshow.blogspot.com

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http://www.bilbohiria.com/gaika/berbaz (radio interviews)

DANCE YOUR PhD: John Bohannon & Black Label Movement

Suzanne Daigle shares on the OSLIST this intriguing video she received from Tobias Mayer, and says: "For me it holds dear all that connects me to Open Space (chaos, order, science, art and then some!)   Hope you enjoy it as much as I did."

Danceyour PhD, a TEDx Brussels talk by John Bohannon.

I picked also indiantemplestampede ´s comment:  "As Doris Humphrey wrote in her amazing "The Art of Making Dances" (1959) "Beware of originality without truth..." "

Enjoy life!

Eleder BuM31    Mind Mapping-Open Space Technology-Creativity

www.burumapak.blogspot.com (eus)   @Eleder_BuM  (Twitter)
www.in-fluyendo.blogspot.com (esp) www.flowandshow.blogspot.com

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http://www.bilbohiria.com/gaika/berbaz (radio interviews)

Oh my, oh my! Congrats Agnetta!

Agneta Setterwall, new OSLIST Poet Laureate (2012)

An open space?

I hesitate

A call somewhere?

I hesitate

An open door?

I hesitate

And people too?!

I hesitate!

Supposed to speak?

I hesitate!!

Tell what I need...

I hesitate...

Tell what I want?

I hesitate!

And they all hear...

I doubt they do!

They will not care!

I´m sure, I´m sure...

And... there they come!

Oh my! They do!

And now we talk!

We do! We do!!!

...they listen too...

...and so do I...

...and what will come...?

Oh my! Oh my!!!

-- Agneta Setterwall (Uppsala, Sweden)

______________________

History of the OSLIST Restricted Form Poetry Contest

“For all those who might be curious, the OSLIST Biannual Restricted Form Poetry Contest started in the spring of 2000 when I issued the challenge to the list.  [The late great] Ralph Copleman actually began the whole thing with a contest in the fall of 1999 (which I won) and so he is the “Poetry King” for all time.  I just claimed the “Poet Laureate” title in an effort to have some fun.  It was something of a one martini idea, and I was out of gin at the time...”

'Restricted form' means some described form or boundary for the poem - as in this recent Poetry Contest where you were invited to create poems about or inspired by Open Space and breathing, trusting the unknown, and emergence.

 ______________________

Our Past OSLIST Poet Laureates

Ralph Copleman 1999

Chris Corrigan 1999 

Chris Weaver 2000

Jeff Aitken 2000

Florian Fischer 2001

Laurel Doersam 2002

Audrey Coward 2002

Joelle Everett 2003

Florian Fischer 2003

Joelle Everett 2004

Lisa Heft 2006

Teresa Pokasony 2006

Karen Sella 2007

Jeff Aitken 2008

Anne Hiha 2008

Esther Ewing 2009

Chris Corrigan 2010

...and now... Agneta Setterwall 2012

MARCIN JAKUBOWSKI: farmer and technologist: OPEN SOURCE ECHOLOGY

Videos taken from this link (http://www.noticiaspositivas.net/2012/02/10/marcin-jakubowski-modelos-de-codigo-abierto-para-la-civilizacion with the Spanish transcription of Marcin´s talk) sent by friend Keko

Marcin Jakubowski´s (http://opensourceecology.org) 4´ Ted Talk:




The global village construction set

Text on the YT video:

Willcleaver (2010 oct 23): A Hollywood movie producer 'Isaiah Saxon' who made the video "Wonderlust" for Björk... is an OSE (open source echology) 'True Fan' and has made a 2minute explainer video of the 'GVCS' - Global Village Construction Set. He put five days work into it out of pure passion for the project! It really gets our GVCS message across in a short and very concise way :) The purpose of the video is for entry into the "Buck Minster Fuller Challenge". But of course we will use it in all future presentations and marketing of this direction :)

Enjoy life!

Eleder BuM31    Mind Mapping-Open Space Technology-Creativity

www.burumapak.blogspot.com (eus)   @Eleder_BuM  (Twitter)
www.in-fluyendo.blogspot.com (esp) www.flowandshow.blogspot.com

http://bm31-liburuak.blogspot.com   

http://www.bilbohiria.com/gaika/berbaz (radio interviews)

Life is easy. Why do we make it so hard? Jon Jandai

From TED´s page: 

Jon is a farmer from northeastern Thailand. He founded the Pun Pun Center for Self-reliance, an organic farm outside Chiang Mai, with his wife Peggy Reents in 2003. Pun Pun doubles as a center for sustainable living and seed production, aiming to bring indigenous and rare seeds back into use. It regularly hosts training on simple techniques to live more sustainably. Outside of Pun Pun, Jon is a leader in bringing the natural building movement to Thailand, appearing as a spokesperson on dozens of publications and TV programs for the past 10 years. He continually strives to find easier ways for people to fulfill their basic needs. For more information visit http://www.punpunthailand.org

12:37: "food, house, clothes and medicine must be cheap and easy for everybody, that is the civilisation!"

Eleder BuM31    Mind Mapping-Open Space Technology-Creativity

@Eleder_BuM (Twitter) www.flowandshow.blogspot.com
www.burumapak.blogspot.com (eus)

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SINGING YOURSELF ALIVE - WILL HEWETT

Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening.. Love like you´ve never been hurt and live like is heaven on earth. - MARK TWAIN

Thanks so much @SunniBrown for tweeting on gorgeous video featuring @vocata.

Vocalist and improviser Will Hewett explores the language of sound beneath words. After singing 15 minutes every day for a year, Will Hewett describes--and sings--what he learned about commitment and the ability of a simple creative practice to open us to vibrancy, and to a deeper connection with ourselves and the world around us.

Some extracts:

My whole concept of time turned inside out This practice became like a generational center of my day. It was like a fire, hoooooo, that the rest of the day gathered around.

Listen to the singing world around me and find my part on it. Something it was like if the world was singing so fully that there was nothing from me to add. 

I sang whatever showed up. Most times sounds in made up languages.

I got to travel every day into the world beneath words: the world of colour, of life, of vibration, of motion, a world that has no borders, no countries, and for me it feels like swimming. And I think we all know this world. I think our bodies are experiencing it all the time, they´re experiencing it right now. We just tend to cover it up with a layer of words, ideas,.thoughts about who we are or who we should be. But words are really flemsy messengers for the fullness of the experience. And singing can bring us here.

So my simple hope is that we´ll just sing more, that we´ll sing our way into the world of our bodies and the body  of our world. That feels more important than ever.

You can start it´s easy. You can just start humming...

Time bows to authentic commitment and it stretches to accommodate it.

Enjoy life, listen to the singing world around us :-)!

Eleder BuM31    Mind Mapping-Open Space Technology-Creativity

@Eleder_BuM (Twitter) www.flowandshow.blogspot.com
www.burumapak.blogspot.com (eus)

www.in-fluyendo.blogspot.com (esp) 

http://bm31-liburuak.blogspot.com     

www.bilbohiria.com/gaika/berbaz (radio interviews)