friendship – The Consulting Artist

What Does Meaning Mean to You?

A review of my experience at the 2014 Meaning Conference in Brighton, November 18th 2014.

I was at Meaning 2014 in Brighton yesterday, along with around 299 other curious folk. This was my second time at the conference, I enjoyed my previous visit and had booked for this year immediately after the 2013 conference finished, something I’ve never done before. I couldn’t stay for the whole day this time, and at one point I’d been dithering over whether or not to attend. I’m glad I stopped dithering, here’s why.

On my way to the event I bumped into Andy Swann and his friend Ed. Turns out I’d been walking in completely the wrong direction so as we corrected my approach, we enjoyed a brief conversation on life, the universe and everything. On arrival – I went straight to the badge stand. Last week the conference organisers tweeted requests for badge slogans and I had responded with a couple of ideas…thanks for listening 🙂

As people milled around chatting and having coffee I was fortunate to share a few minutes with Neil Mullarkey. Among other things, Neil co-founded The Comedy Store Players so the art of improvisation is something he has lots of experience in. I was fortunate to experiment with improv with Joe Gerstandt and an enthusiastic crowd in Illinois recently, and I am keen to learn more.

A friend had recommended Neil to me so having the opportunity to meet and talk with him was lovely. A key element of improv is accepting the offer of someone’s words, and building on them, something referred to as ‘yes, and’. As we parted, I offered Neil my ‘I don’t have to be perfect’ badge from last year’s event, he kindly accepted. I then enjoyed a few brief conversations with friends, before Kev Wyke and I joined the throng filing into the theatre for the start.

Meaning Conference currently revolves around short ish talks – around 20-25 minutes a piece. A good format, as you are either left wanting more, or you know you’ve not got long to wait until something else comes along. After warm introductions from Tom Nixon, who came on stage to the most dramatic opening music I’ve ever heard, we were off.

First up was Mark Stevenson who promised us ‘the future in 20 minutes’. He was fast and funny, and as well as humour and speed he told tales of DNA sequencing and how that is now being used experimentally for cancer reduction. Mark suggested that technology falls into three categories. The stuff that existed before you were born, sewers, textiles, cars – you take this stuff for granted. Then there’s the stuff that appears before you reach the age of 35. This stuff is exciting and useful and you get to grips with it. Lastly, there’s everything that appears affect you are 35, and all this stuff just serves to make you grumpy. He told of solar power becoming rapidly affordable – and the tension between green energy, the utility companies and government. He spoke of 3D printers printing 3D printers and much more besides. Through the lens of the classroom he showed us how little some things have changed, and argued that we are educating people to be fit for the past, not the future. This was a barnstorming opening session which for me, almost went too fast. I hung on – just.

Ben Dyson was up next, to talk about Positive Money. Positive Money is:

‘a movement for a money and banking system that works for society and not against it. We’re campaigning for the power to create money to be used in the public interest, in a democratic, transparent and accountable way, rather than by the same banks that caused the financial crisis.’

I’ve been following the campaign for a while now and whilst I am not in any way an economics expert, I do know a little about fairness and I think what Ben and his team are progressing is important for us all. Ben shared with us that economics as it is currently taught is underpinned by rational choices – and we all know we don’t always make those. Only 3% of all money is cash, the rest is simply electronic exchanges, it isn’t real. Banks create this money out of loans and they are incentivised to do so. Here are a few more of the startling stats that Ben shared.

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For the first time in 170 years Parliament is holding a debate about money creation. On Thursday 20th November a backbench debate hosted by Steve Baker (Con), Michael Meacher (Lab), Caroline Lucas (Green), Douglas Carswell (UKIP) and David Davis (Con) is going to take place. If you are based in the UK and are reading this, and you think a fairer, more transparent money system matters, please drop your MP a line and encourage them to take part in this debate.

We then heard from Stefania Druga. Stefania is the founder of HacKIDemia, an international organisation that supports learning by doing and playing. She was here to tell us a little about a fascinating project called AfriMakers. AfriMakers ‘enable makers in Africa to develop sustainable projects and use making to solve local challenges and create an exchange of best practices between locals.’ Here are a few lines Stefania spoke which resonated powerfully for me:

Afrimakers – necessity = creativity and improvisation
Making stuff – in Africa it’s a necessity
Connect through values – everything else works
15 stones in the room – Zen Buddhism you can’t see all 15 – they are there you can’t see it all so question stuff
Change = Time*(work/people) Equation – time is the key – give it to people.
Let’s play together – recognise difference don’t impose yourself on others
Our desire to help is not always helping

I enjoyed good conversations in the breaks and over lunch, and then I had to depart, so I didn’t see the rest of the day unfold in real life. Looking at Twitter, it seemed to unfold in all manner of interesting ways. An enjoyable event – well done to everyone who helped make it happen.

One last thing for now – I am curious, what does meaning mean to you? I invited people to respond to this question and I added their thoughts and ideas to a rough sketch note. The note grew through my time at the conference and on the train home. Here’s where this cocreated thinking got to, and if you’d like to add something about what meaning means to you in the comments, I’d love to hear from you.

PS – I bought my ticket for the 2015 event last night 😉

Do You Have A Best Friend At Work?

Does friendship at work matter, and what does it look and feel like?

Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend. – Albert Camus

A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out. – Walter Winchell

I’m heading to the Meaning Conference in Brighton this morning. I can only stay for a few hours and the two main reasons I’m going are: the anticipation of being provoked and challenged, and to catch up with friends.

Do you have a best friend at work? So asks question number 10 of the famous (or infamous depending on your point of view) Gallup 12. Gallup go so far as to stay that when it comes to ’employee engagement’ their questions are the only questions you need. Seeing as their question set doesn’t include ‘How much do you love cake?’, I don’t agree with their assertion, but I do like question number 10.

I know people who like to snigger at this notion of friendship at work, and I also know from my own experience that the people I consider friends, are the ones who I enjoy spending time with, and who I can be of use to, at least some of the time. I know from the work I do that people who can develop a sense of friendship, and of getting to know one another better, do better work together. Yet somehow the notion of friendship at work is something that we often don’t readily compute. I can relate to that, and often when I’m struggling to apply something which feels unfamiliar to its surroundings, I first try and think of it in a more ‘natural’ state.

I recently joined a new cycling club, and the club gets a few requests to respond to the media about our interests in the sport. Over the weekend I was asked to consider and briefly write about the benefits of being a member of a cycling club for a feature on a sports website. Here’s the essence of what I submitted:

The people I rode with on Saturday think a good cycling club should be an encouraging place to be, and it should be a nurturing place to be. For example – when we are out for a ride, we regroup often, to wait for the slowest group member, we don’t leave people behind.

Variety is important, so we try and encourage different people to lead rides to different places. We have a few members in our club with an excellent knowledge of great places to ride, so we perhaps are a little spoiled for choice, but we think there’s nothing more boring than cycling to and from the same place every week – so mix it up.

We enjoy a lot of laughs when we’re out together – our sense of humour isn’t for everyone but we think spending time together should be good fun, so don’t take yourselves too seriously.

These brief thoughts – by themselves they aren’t the magic ingredients for great work. Unlike Gallup I don’t profess to have found the answer, or even twelve answers for that matter – and if there is such a thing as culture at work, I think it would be helpful if it were nurturing, varied and fun – among other things. How about you?

photo credit : Jlhopgood

Down At The Beach

Art inspired by the importance of spending time with good friends.

I had a rare opportunity to catch up with three old friends last weekend. We take a trip to the coast once a year for a night or two away just to goof around and catch up with one another. It’s great fun. Even rarer – this year the weather was so still and mild, we opted to sit out on the beach all night. We dragged a huge box of beer and some wood to a quiet place, lit a fire and drank and talked for hours.

I took paints with me on the trip, I figured it might be easier to use acrylics for a change, and a palette to mix colours from a set of around a dozen tubes I have. In the end, what with the beer and the moonlight offering very little to see by – I opted just to splodge around pretty much directly from the paint tubes and see what happened. As I added different colours to the pictures I sometimes mixed sand in too. As well as acting as a strong reminder of where the pictures were made, I also enjoyed adding something different to the mix. As a result – these pictures have a depth and texture that water colour, which I work with more frequently, doesn’t provide.

This first picture represents the glowing fire we made on the beach, and the second picture is an abstraction of looking across the beach and out over the water and the night sky beyond. Although it was dark – together we were in excellent company and the brightness of the picture is an interpretation of that. The first picture is on 240 g/m2 acrylic paper, 17.5cm x 12.5cm. The second picture is on 270 g/m2 water colour paper, 32cm x 24cm.