Creative – Page 11 – The Consulting Artist

Making 2017 Better Than 2016. Part 1 : Coming Back From Nowhere.

In very brief summary, 2016 was a poor year.

A look back shows me I didn’t plan sufficiently and didn’t take enough action. I also took my eye off some important things, and spent too much time worrying about things which had passed and/or I had very little/no control over. The lack of control thing will always exist so I need to be and will be more comfortable with that. The rest, I can and will do better at.

I am making changes to my approach, starting with working through ‘How to Have Your Best Year, Every Year’ a workbook by Ann Hawkins. This workbook asks ten questions, the first of which is this:

‘What was your biggest accomplishment last year?’

My work comes from several sources. I’m going to start by acknowledging those sources and grouping accomplishments accordingly. I will then choose what I consider to be the biggest accomplishment of the year from each source.

Direct Sourced Work. Work which I source/attract through my network, and which I am primarily responsible for designing and facilitating, sometimes as part of a bigger event/program.

Art for Work’s Sake making it to the finals in the 2016 Learning Awards.
Leap Day 2016.
My improvised ‘Art of Better Learning’ ignite talk at the CIPD L&D show.
Opening the All About People conference in Bournemouth with The Art and Soul of Better Work.
Curating the graffiti wall at the Social Age Safari in Bristol.
Presenting and facilitating a master’s session at Ohio SHRM.
Opening Elmbridge Borough Council Manager’s conference with an art based learning workshop.
Facilitating a Leap Day for NHS North West.

Biggest accomplishment : Opening the All About People conference in Bournemouth with The Art and Soul of Better Work.

Why? Having resharpened and adapted my ‘live’ skills earlier on the year at the CIPD L&D show (recovering from misadventure) and at the Social Age Safari (my first time in an artist/curator role), I was given complete creative freedom for this session by Andy Swann, the event organiser. I’ve known Andy for a while, we had the privilege of doing a short European speaking tour together in 2015. There is a high level of trust in our relationship. Andy gave me the space, and the confidence to go all in on this session. This may sound cheesy, but I was at my best, most honest, wholehearted, imperfect self for this adventurous presentation, which combined a 20 minute talk at the start of the event, with a huge piece of cocreated art, made by our guests during the day.

It was an amazing event to be a part of, and led directly to me being invited to do something similar with Elmbridge Borough Council later in the year. This connection shows me that people see something in what I do that resonates with them. I believe I give generously of myself, and that what goes around, comes around. This event and the present and subsequent joy it brought to others and to me, matters. I need to make more people aware of this, and build on it.

Partnering Work. Work which we source/attract through our network, and which I have a role in designing and facilitating, sometimes as part of a bigger event/program.

Fringe events at PPMA annual conference with Meg Peppin.
Fringe events at CIPD annual conference with Meg, fourth year running.
Preliminary design of the Confer product.

Biggest accomplishment : Our fourth year of fringe events at the CIPD annual conference.

Why? Over the past three years, Meg and I have developed an excellent working relationship with Stephen Pobjoy and his team at the CIPD. This coalesced into a highly confident series of fringe events in 2016, which still retained their slightly edgy, experimental feel of previous years. Meg and I worked really well together, and we made great use of the trust the CIPD place in us. This enabled the delivery of some enjoyable, useful work with a creative and gently challenging edge. It’s well worth noting and acknowledging that the work we did at the PPMA conference arose from a positive experience at the 2015 CIPD fringe – so once again, good things are connected. I need to make more people aware of this, and build on it.

Associate work. Work which I do for and on behalf of other legal entities.

Becoming a partner at EthosVO and finding a useful and enjoyable role as a member of the People Group, a bit like an HR department, but so much better!
Signing an associate agreement with Smith+Co, and supporting a customer experience project with and for a key client.

Biggest accomplishment : Being a part of the EthosVO People Group.

Why? EthosVO is unlike anywhere else I work. It’s a partnership which has “The ability to build multi-stakeholder ecosystems that deliver trust and engagement at the individual level” Whether for customer, citizen, employee. Whether for their work, living or well-being. Building engagement and trustworthiness is the crisis of our current times that needs more attention, leadership and enabling technologies. The People Group, of which I am a member, is a loose approximation of an HR department, though unlike any other I’ve seen. This is partly due to the operating nature of the business and partly due to our desire to experiment with different ways of working.

It’s hard work – we face thorny challenges around recruitment, retention, performance and more. It’s real work too. Sometimes as a freelance consultant it can be hard to stay grounded. Lofty ideas and aspirations are useful and have a place – and they need to knit with the client reality, the day to day grind. Doing this work as part of EthosVO is an enjoyable challenge and gives me something which few freelancers have. I need to make more people aware of this, and build on it.

Artist (Yes. I am an artist)

Starting and establishing the We Are All Artists free art project, resulting in over 60 pieces of original art given away at random.
Selling over 20 original artworks.
Seeing the total donation from my art related work to Arts Emergency, rise over £300.

Biggest accomplishment : The We Are All Artists free art project.

Why? Imagine you could develop a hobby into one of the greatest learning opportunities of your life. An opportunity which would connect you to your community in ways you couldn’t begin to imagine, an opportunity which would see you featured in the local newspaper, see you and your project covered by ITV London Evening News, an opportunity to make new friends, develop your practice, and win a community award. Need I say more?

To conclude part one.

I mistakenly subtitled this section of my plan ‘Coming Back From Nowhere’, that was too harsh. I’m definitely coming back from somewhere. Somewhere interesting, useful, curious, challenging and enjoyable. I’m going to leave the subtitle in to remind me not to be so hasty next time, not to be so down on myself, and to acknowledge and focus more on the good things. Recording this feedback has been enjoyable and useful, it has reminded me that even in a poor year, many excellent things happened. It has also shown me how connected many things are. I need to raise my awareness of this less in review, more in the moment.

More please!

Noise Annoys

I often hear noise being described as ‘unwanted sound’. As someone who grew up listening to a lot of punk music, I’m not sure it’s quite as simple as that. Sitting upstairs in my bedroom, I was frequently yelled at to turn off the noise noise noise, stop kicking up a racket, etc. This stuff wasn’t (and still isn’t) unwanted to me, and I readily accept it’s not everyone’s idea of good music.

Fortunately for you – I usually enjoy my music when I’m working alone, or with headphones on – so it needn’t trouble you, but what about the noise that’s not so easy to avoid? How does that affect you, particularly when you’re trying to work?

I met Paige Hodsman at the Workplace Trends conference last year. Paige works for Ecophon who specialise in acoustic solutions to improve the working environment, and we got to talking about how noise and sound affects your ability to be creative at work. After the event our conversation continued, and continued, until we decided to offer up an interactive workshop for people, to explore and experience how changes in the environment affect our ability and desire to be creative. That workshop is called The Art of Sound, and it takes place in Central London on June 7th. Would you like to come and take part? You can book a place here. It won’t cost you any money, and we’ll provide lunch and all the materials you’ll need. It would be lovely to see you.

Purely by chance, since Paige and I decided to run this session, I have come into contact with Chris Moriarty from Leesman, a company which gathers and shares all kinds of interesting data to help people understand their workplace performance. Chris has kindly shared some data with me which shows the extent to which people are concerned by noise at work, and how it impacts creative thinking and a host of other things besides. I’ve not had the data for long, and I can already see that of the 160,000 people who have currently responded to the Leesman Index survey, just over three quarters of them indicate that noise levels at work are important to them.

On average across the Index only 55.8% of people agree that the workplace enables them to be productive. However, when you look at those that have indicated that noise levels are important and they are happy with them, you see that number rise to 82.2% against those that are dissatisfied with noise down at 32.7%. A 49.5 percentage points difference.
Noise is also impacting enjoyment, this time there’s a 37.8 percentage points difference (78.2% satisfied vs 40.3% dissatisfied). These are big gaps. If we are to improve the workplace and make it more conducive to creative, and enjoyable working, then understanding this stuff is important, for people in workplace design and implementation, and for HR people too.

I can also see that noise is affecting many of the tasks we need to perform at work, and I’ll keep digging through what Chris has provided and share some more details at the event on June 7th. I hope to see you there, and until then, I’ll leave you with The Buzzcocks doing what they do best.

The Art of the Possible – Analog Kid : Digital Man

Analog Kid

The boy lies in the grass with one blade
Stuck between his teeth
A vague sensation quickens
In his young and restless heart
And a bright and nameless vision
Has him longing to depart. N Peart

I was born in 1965, the same year the first ever desktop computer hit the market. The Programma 101 by Olivetti arrived, and overnight, computers went from looking like this:

IBM System:360 Model 30 — IBM System/360 Model 30

To looking like this:

We took a very different view of computers back then. People were ‘a bit terrified of them’, and concerned that computers would be used to control everything and take away freedom.

I don’t recall ever using a computer during my school years. All our work was written in books, drawn on paper, listened to on tape and vinyl. Signals were likely to be distorted, there was interference, and feedback. Though I wasn’t aware of it at the time, the pen and the brush were among the devices I used which provided some of that feedback. The signals might be quite subtle, but they were there. The response of the writing and drawing instrument when crafting different letters, different shapes, and shades. You don’t get this subtle feedback from a keyboard or a stylus.

Digital Man

He picks up scraps of information
He’s adept at adaptation
Because for strangers and arrangers
Constant change is here to stay. N Peart

I started work in the mid 1980s, by which time computers looked something like this:

A decade later I was selling computers to earn a living, and they were common place in people’s homes and at work. I remember starting work for BT in 1996 and being surprised to find no computer at my desk. Some of my colleagues were quite happy to still be relying on inter office memos stuffed in envelopes, and though people were given email addresses – there seemed to be no compulsion to use them.

Fast forward to now, and for most people who read this blog, the idea of not being connected to your work through computers and other devices is practically impossible.

Love them or loathe them, etcetera. And yet…

Analog Kid : Digital Man

…for all the advantages of digital, there remains something distinctly ‘connected’ about working in analog. Those subtle signals I mentioned earlier – the feedback a pencil gives you when you write and draw – that’s a very desirable thing. I recently spotted my friend Euan Semple talking about Blackwing Pencils on Facebook. I followed the crumb trail and discovered you can pay $25 for a box of 12 Palomino Blackwing 24 pencils, produced as a tribute to Pulitzer Prize winning author John Steinbeck. In truth, you’ll be lucky to find these available for sale, they are a limited edition pencil (I swear I had no idea there was such a thing), and seemingly the only way to guarantee a set of these, or at least of future limited editions, is to join The Blackwing Club. Pencils as a desirable collector’s item, how about that?

I digress. Limited edition or otherwise, I believe the humble pencil, pen, and brush remain essential tools to work with. For all the speed with which I can ramble on here, each digit I produce on the screen feels just the same as the last. Q = W = E = R = T = Y. I know from my own experience and from the feedback I gain through arts based learning, that using analog tools to supplement your digital work, creates fundamentally different outputs. When we work like this, I and others see, hear and feel emotions much more clearly, and there seems to be a greater presence of something you might call humanity, when people are creating work together, by hand.

I don’t want to get all dogmatic about this, working by hand is not the answer to making work better, it is an answer. Thankfully, not everything follows Moore’s Law.

More to follow…