Square wheels of innovation

I read a blog about blogging today (go figure), which discussed its pros and cons. One of the cons mentioned was the need to write regularly in order to keep readers interested and returning. Others I've talked to say it doesn't matter whether it's regular as long as it's consistent, so that people know when to return, whether daily, weekly or monthly. Well, I like the element of surprise, so my blogging strategy is "sporadic". 

Hopefully that isn't reinventing the wheel in such a square shape as elevator manufacturers have, with their new "buttonless" design.  New lifts popping up in corporate buildings (like the PriceWaterhouse Coopers building in downtown Auckland, which we visited today) have no floor or call buttons - you now enter the floor you wish to go to in a separate console and it tells you which lift to take (the cars are lettered). If you press the button with the Universal Access (wheelchair) Symbol, it embarrasses you by shouting the lift letter (hopeless if you are  blind because it doesn't say where it is). Once you're in the lift there are no floor buttons except to open and close the doors, which made me feel strangely like I had no arms. 

Obviously  designed for efficiency in car management, where the system really falls down is if you pick the wrong floor. You can't just push another floor - oh no, you have to get out, find the console, punch (yes, by now you're punching) the floor in, find the right lift,  wait for it and get back in.

It makes you wonder if the nods who design them actually use them. What do you think - do you like these nouvelle elevateurs - or, like me, are you thinking nothing was broken, so who decided to fix it?

While I'm grumbling about innovation that just makes life more difficult, how about the new Microsoft Office Fluent user interface? Fluent?! Luckily I don't use it because I use Apple, but I've had a couple of goes and it must be the most unintuitive UI I've seen for ages. Like the buttonless lift, it's innovation for the sake of it, as useful as a square wheel. What was wrong with menus, Microsoft?

Your thoughts? Come on people, talk to me!

Revenge of the fat, pink Americans?

[Image: www.tv3.co.nz]

While mainstream New Zealand agonises over whether pink "Tagger" jackets will suggest taggers are gay, I wonder what the choice of colours conveys about the cop who chose it and, by proxy, all cops – all heterosexual men for that matter. I mean, subconsciously, what was he thinking? Skater boys with spray cans wearing caps and baggy shorts, clad in pink. Sounds like a secret little homoerotic fantasy, if you ask me.

Meanwhile, America is about to make a gay-looking black man President - what does that say about Americans? They've come a long way, haven't they? Now, if Obama turns out to be a female-to-male transsexual, I'll eat my hat.

And apparently two thirds of New Zealanders are fat and offended by the stating of the fact. Well, I'm sick of being told I'm too thin, too.

So. Interesting times.

On the UK radio...

While I was in Manchester in April I was interviewed by the local gay radio show about being gay, disabled, vegetarian, kiwi and funny...

Listen here: Part 1 || Part 2

Quote of the Day

Peter Drucker - "The only thing we know about the future is that it will be different."

Thinking on the hop

So much for regular blogging - my three days of working and hanging out with the folk at arcadea was so intense that writing about it was really out of the question. Even now it's hard to know how to do the experience justice without giving myself an overuse injury. I'll start with a really brief synopsis and then add the contents of an email I've just sent to Vici, arcadea's director.

On Tuesday I spent the morning with Vici in what we tried to make a structured mentoring meeting. It ended up as the beginning of a three day tangented, organic and, at times (testament to an instant and strong mutual rapport) hilarious, discussion on cultural equality, the state of disability arts in the UK and our shared passion to inject renewed vitality into individuals and a movement experiencing changes in arts funding policies, apathy, identity confusion and what I might term loosely social fracture (difficulty in meeting together, organising, agreeing on focus etc). These discussions threaded through into a meeting with arcadea's board (only three of whom were able to attend) on Tuesday evening, a full day seminar with artists on Wednesday, and a seminar with council and arts facilities staff on Thursday morning followed by a concluding dynamic brainstorm about the future on Thursday morning. The energy created by about a dozen people who came to all or most events was palpable, of which I was honoured to be a part. I left inspired by the generation of ideas and vision that sprung from my visit.

If I were to summarise my input by way of justifying my presence, it was:

• Presenting my story as inspiiration and testament to creating internal and external change in unison.
• Introducing the idea of functional diversity as a reframing tool for the experience of disability. This generated intense discussion about language and identity, including the nature of the word 'function', which I agreed has limits due to clinical connotation, as well as a pragmatic and width of meaning. This debate has already inspired an evolution in my thinking described below.
• Reframing 'disability arts' as part of the realm of creative and social entrepreneurship, attributing barriers and resistant attitudes to the innovative aspect of the work and landscape, rather than the content of the issue. I was also able offer social entrepreneurship theory - standing still, resiliency cycles and the call to engage repetitively in complex rather than simple pursuits - to make sense of the challenges the group was facing as individuals and as a movement.
• Observing the connection between individual, internal reality and collective, external reality and using deliberate creation of the former to influence change in the latter.
• Consciously combating fatigue and weariness by observing and changing negative and patterned beliefs into useful, constructive ones.
• Capitalising on relationship building, persuasion and constructive thinking to build future direction, balancing without devaluing activism, cynicism and victim-based approaches.

Thursday's final brainstorm was testimony to the success of the three day Inspiring Internationalists event. I witnessed individual changes Vici and her three executive colleagues that bouy me in my outlook for the future for arcadea and the movement in the North East region.

The rest is taken from the email sent to Vici this morning, focusing on my thinking on functional diversity and the future:

I had a very relaxing day yesterday, barely got out of bed, and woke this morning at 5:30 with "the answer" to the functional diversity dilemma - a better term I think is EXPERIENTIAL DIVERSITY, where the enquiry is into the VALUE of UNIQUE EXPERIENCE (physical, social, emotional etc) vs COMMON EXPERIENCE - but also the EXPRESSION of Unique Experience vs Common Experience. This allows for disablement and therefore the "disabled" identity to be simply one facet of Unique Experience and Expression. I think the idea of experience also lends itself well to the idea of internal and external experience - the difference between how I experience myself and how others experience me - and using expression as the bridge.

All this makes the WISE SPECIES™ model (which just didn't have time to emerge in the 3 days) more coherent. I'm really quite excited about this conceptual development because it speaks so perfectly to my wider interest in social change. It allows a language and enquiry into the Experiential/Expressive Diversity of all social groups, creating an equal space to explore a constructive/ creative perspective on experience and craft it into useful expression, without overlooking marginalisation and discrimination, powerlessness and oppression. By definition it must also include privilege, power and even criminal deviation and anti-social roles.

So, going back to the disability arts aspect and our discussion about the future on Thursday night, it seems to me this could form the basis of some more focused professional development work I could offer to artists with unique experience (informed by impairment and disability). It would be great to work with a group of artists wanting to explore their unique experience in the context of their creative/expressive work, over a longer period, perhaps a week or more, and maybe have it culminate in a public showing.

ARTS COUNCIL SYNERGY
This article came through on an IFACCA newsletter. Maybe there is a chance to strike while the iron is hot and offer dialogue for new ACE CEO in terms of his "mission to see “excellent” arts and culture made accessible to all" - I note he also mentions Newcastle/Gateshead as doing things differently - so he'll be expecting a different take from you!?!?
New arts chief on a mission to change people’s lives for better - nebusiness.co.uk

Style is a subjective thing...

Here's a little gem I received by email. It has no real relevance to success or potential, except for serving as a reminder that it's good to unwind and poke a little harmless fun every now and then :-)

Download PDF »

The remote control of leadership

"The test of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already."

- John Buchan

Like wisdom, leadership is often mistaken as a quality that only some people possess. When we look for leaders to lead others, we look for particular developed skills and attributes - perhaps extreme competence in a certain area like sport or a technical skill, confidence or charisma.

But leadership is a quality that everyone is capable of and displays at some point in their lives. When was the last time someone you wouldn't think of as a leader suggested seeing a movie, having coffee or dinner with friends, or doing something, however small, differently at work? That's them displaying leadership qualities.

Even deciding to change the tv channel is leadership.

The 5 tasks of leaders are to:

• develop a positive future vision (dream) - "I want to watch a different programme."
  
• incorporate the vision into daily life (think) - "I need the remote."
  
• sell the vision to others (talk) - "Hey you guys, you'll really enjoy this programme."
  
• take calculated risks with the vision (do) - "Let's just watch it for five minutes." Click!
  
• involve others with meaning (share) - "Hey, isn't this a great show?"
  

Adapted from “Becoming a Leader of Leaders” by Warren Bennis

So next time you're looking for someone to fulfill a leadership role, you might seek to put faith in a burgeoning couch potato and see what potential you find beyond the remote control...

If you'd like to know more about leadership and potential, contact us at Diversityworks.
 

Positive thinking can have negative consequences

"There's a huge difference between positive thinking and constructive thinking. You are standing in a market-place and a car parks on your foot. Positive thinking suggests that you make the best of your enforced immobility. You look around and appreciate the architecture. You watch the stallholders and human nature. You inhale and appreciate the smells. You chat to children who gather around. Constructive thinking suggests you make an effort to get the car shifted."

Edward de Bono, in New Thinking for the New Millennium

This story illustrates that thinking positively can actually keep us in negative situations. In order to move on and achieve our potential, we need to think constructively, not positively.

If you'd like to know more about constructive thinking and potential, contact us at Diversityworks.
 

Fostering a spirit of teamwork

From an email received:

Fostering a spirit of teamwork is critical in times of change. The key element is trust. Trust for the leader and trust for each other.

There is a wonderful story from the play, Some Folks Feel the Rain; Others Just Get Wet, that truly captures how people really feel about working together. Here it is...Enjoy!

A man was lost while driving through the country. As he tried to reach for the map, he accidentally drove off the road into a ditch. Though he wasn’t injured, his car was stuck deep in the mud. So the man walked to a nearby farm to ask for help.

“Warwick can get you out of that ditch,” said the farmer, pointing to an old mule standing in a field. The man looked at the decrepit old mule and looked at the farmer who just stood there repeating, “Yep, old Warwick can do the job.” The man figured he had nothing to lose. The two men and the mule made their way back to the ditch. The farmer hitched the mule to the car. With a snap of the reins, he shouted,

“Pull, Fred! Pull, Jack! Pull, Ted! Pull, Warwick!”

And the mule pulled that car right out of the ditch.

The man was amazed. He thanked the farmer, patted the mule, and asked, “Why did you call out all of those names before you called Warwick?”

The farmer grinned and said, “Old Warwick is just about blind. As long as he believes he’s part of a team, he doesn’t mind pulling.”

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

This is my favourite from TED.com:

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it. With ample anecdotes and witty asides, Robinson points out the many ways our schools fail to recognize -- much less cultivate -- the talents of many brilliant people. "We are educating people out of their creativity," Robinson says. The universality of his message is evidenced by its rampant popularity online. A typical review: "If you have not yet seen Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk, please stop whatever you're doing and watch it now."

More about Sir Ken Robinson »

I believe in the healing power of humour and art

Reader Joyologist says:

"I believe in the healing power of humour and art. I believe people perform to optimum in high trust environments where they are rewarded for having fun doing what they love. I have a vision for 2020 that we will be experiencing an intimacy revolution! By that i mean we will be communing at a deep level. I have been able to experience this intimacy with the physical being of human form all my working life, initially with my nursing and more recently in creative expression working with women with breast cancer. When we shine we pave the way for others to shine."