Are you attending the Changing Media Summit 2007?
I'll be attending the MediaGuardian Changing Media Summit 2007 in London on Thursday next with a whole 24 hours off to play in London the day before! If you are at the conference do say hello
Changing Media Summit in London
I'm currently at the Guardian Changing Media Summit in London. So far I've learned that:
Twitter is soooo passé
The Guardian doesn't have wifi
The Chatham House rules don't rule in an age of changing media
It is possible to have a PowerPoint free conference
and now I'm wondering if I should pay attention to the conference proceedings or adopt a more post modern approach and read the posts of bloggers who are reporting on the proceedings....(Unlike Antony Mayfield I haven't yet interrupted proceedings with my loud typing.
PS: This is the scariest and most impressive conference I've ever been to in terms of punctuality. Every single session (including breaks and lunch) has started and ended on time..Brilliant!
**Update** Oh the mortification ... somewhere during the day my mobile phone has gone missing..of all the places on the planet to lose one's mobile...a media conference..
Irish Business Women Conference
Irish Business Women is an online forum that supports Irish women entrepreneurs (there are a couple of men over there also!). In its two years in existence it has signed up over 1000 members and its second annual conference will take place on 17 and 18 May in Knockranny House Hotel in Mayo. The theme of this year's conference is Thinking Bigger - What are we waiting for? I'm honoured to be both chairing the conference and presenting a paper entitled "Sabotage, a user's guide to loving and leaving your inner critic". I'll be amongst a fantastic line up of speakers and am really looking forward to meeting so many of the members from IBW in person.
The full programme for the conference is available HERE.
We are educating people out of their creativity
We are educating people out of our creativity
In another of the superb TED podcasts Ken Robinson gives a riveting (and very witty) presentation on the value of creativity and how our western education system is teaching us how to use our bodies as glorified transportation systems for our heads. He advocates a shift in the education system that values creativity for its own sake and for its impact on innovation. A timely reminder perhaps of a general election looming in about a week or so? I would be very interested to hear what our public representatives would make of Robinson's thoughts..
A tribute to my blogger colleagues
I want to pay a tribute to bloggers – yes, gush alert – you have been warned. I was invited to chair the Irish Business Women’s conference in County Mayo this weekend and talked a few of my blogging colleagues into participating and as a result Irish bloggers played a pivotal part in the conference proceedings.
Conn recorded speakers for a series of podcasts which will be aired over the coming weeks (two recorded before the event are already online); Claire weaved in and out of the speakers and talks, camera in hand documenting everything, including the all important chocolate fountain on the Thursday night.. (The first set of shots are already up on Flickr); Keith liveblogged and has a superb summary of the speakers’ presentations on his blog. I stayed well away from technology apart from my time keeping equipment (a large brass bell).
One of the exciting thing for me about the event (and there were others!) is that it’s the first time I’ve seen these bloggers "do" what they “do” in real life. We were all there as professionals who happen to blog. I’ve never seen people work as hard as my three colleagues did on Thursday and Friday – Claire, camera in hand, even managed to ask a pivotal question in the Q and A which captured people’s attention and then went back to shooting photographs. I invited Conn to the podium to do his “elevator pitch” about podcasting and he hosted mini workshop sessions during the breaks to encourage people to listen to podcasts. Keith participated as a delegate and made the content available to all via his blog. None of my colleagues were being paid for their work (Claire and Conn were sponsors of the event); I think Keith may have paid to attend as a delegate.
When people ask me what’s the difference between blogging and just participating on a forum or being out on the “internet” I try to talk about the “givers get” mentality that I see so frequently amongst bloggers. Bloggers (and these bloggers in particular) are some of the most generous, egoless people I’ve ever met. Yes, blogging can be an ego trip but giving back what you know and making what you know available in a freely accessible medium is a really generous act. These bloggers are committed to spreading the word and in each of our own ways we tried to keep the communication flow moving within the conference boundary and without so that as many people as possible could have their say and take something away from the proceedings.
I also didn’t realise that pizza is pivotal.
More than one speaker alluded to developing their business idea over a pizza and a bottle of wine…after the event Claire and I collapsed into comfy chairs in the company of Coronotion Street and pizza. I thought that there was such a great array of speakers that it would be a shame to let them get away without facilitating some kind of discussion so I decided to postpone my presentation and use the time to bring the speakers back for some interaction leading to an extended Q and A - I wrote up my offering which captures some of the points I would have made called Anyone for Pizza? – now if that’s not the collective unconscious at work I just don’t know what is.
Disclaimer: Unlike my blogging colleagues, I was paid for my services on the day
Sabotage - loving and leaving your inner critic
The following is the short paper I prepared for the Irish Business Women's Conference in Mayo last week called "Anyone for Pizza?". As it turned out the paper wasn't presented because I offered the time slot for an extended Q & A with delegates It is available as a PDF download by clicking here. (The paper has also been added to the Library on the main site).
Do any of these sound familiar?
You’ve a business idea that’s been cooking away in your head for years..you have an opportunity to make it happen but can’t seem to take the leap…it just doesn’t seem to be the “right time”.
You’ve decided to go it alone as a self-employed person after years of thinking about it .. there’s more work than you can handle and you need to employ someone .. just before you hire that assistant all that work seems to dry up and suddenly there’s no need for anyone else.
You’ve worked hard on the diet, cross-trained, spinned, walked miles and cut back on the carbs…you’re 5 pounds from your goal and you decide to celebrate – anyone for pizza?
If any of these sound familiar then meet your inner saboteur. Self-sabotage is more common than you think and most of us have a familiar set of fears in our head that steps in right at the moment when we want to make a change, take a risk or do something different and very often sends us off track.
But if we’ve worked so hard, harboured those dreams and really want to be different – why on earth do we stop at the last hurdle? What possible function could an inner saboteur have? There’s a long answer and a short answer (let’s look at both). The short answer is – we decide that the saboteur’s voice is the more sensible view - the long answer is – well … let’s meet the F Words.
Continue reading "Sabotage - loving and leaving your inner critic" »
Helping people tell stories of belonging
The way you enter an organisation has a big impact on how you perceive the place you work. The recruitment process (really part of staff induction) creates a range of expectations and if these expectations are unmet a subtle erosion of trust occurs—not what you want on day 1. A common view of staff induction is that it all happens the day you start and mostly over within a week. A typical induction involves being taken around the floor by you manager to meet your new colleagues and shown the places to eat, then the new employee sits through a session with a group of other new starters where senior people tell what they think you should know—strategy, policies, who's who in the zoo. Invariably there is too much information to take in on day 1.
That's from a great post from Shawn over at Anecdote and he goes on to outline a model of staff induction and learning that might roll out over a year. At the heart of his post is the idea that induction is a learning process - learning how to enter, how to belong, how to reflect on the learning and how to pass it on to someone else entering. It's a balance between formal and informal learning and also creating spaces for people to share their stories and experiences of belonging.
I think this is so important because very often people like me are called in to work with people about not belonging - perhaps it's because a team isn't functioning as well as it might; or there's a disjoin between theory and practice or someone isn't "fitting in" in all the creative ways that we don't "fit in". Shawn's model is an ongoing one where reflection is a critical part of creating the active story of belonging. I wonder what might happen if spaces were created to tell stories of belonging instead of creating mechanisms for helping people fit in?
Pilobolus, Symbiosis and TED
Pilobolus began as an experiment among three guys and one puzzled professor in a Dartmouth dance class back in 1970. It was survival of the giddiest, as the three non-dancers goofed around with the material they'd been given -- themselves -- and got entangled in science-inspired poses (think: "soft-belly protoplasmic thing") and movements. From these humble, biological beginnings has emerged an innovative, unlikely and almost-uncategorizable dance company that combines athleticism, grace and humor with a profound sense of unity.
Have a look at this 14 minute performance from Pilobolus (where else but at TED 2005). The piece is called Symbiosis and like so many of the arts and cultural events at this conference it blends extraordinary technical skill with a deep emotional impact. I'm going to choose a number of my favourite arts/cultural events from TED to publish here over the next few weeks but for now, enjoy.
Mmm I think there may be a problem with that embedded video - here's a link to the TED site where you can see the video.
Systems-Psychodynamics and the Internet
I've just returned from Stockholm where I attended the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations annual symposium. The symposium is an opportunity for those of us working in a psychoanalytic way with organisations to meet and share knowledge about this area of practice.
There were numerous interesting papers and one in particular on a group relations conference conducted via the internet caught my attention. I have to admit to being mystified by how a group relations conference that didn't deal with the territory (i.e. cyberspace) would work. The consultant presenting the case paper bravely stepped into the project and fed back his experiences of how it was managed and conducted. The detail of that isn't of particular interest here. But what did interest me is how systems-psychodynamics needs to be applied to working on the web. There is a whole body of literature at this stage (particularly from psychology and systems thinking) about operating and working on line which I think systems-psychodynamics needs to attend to and build on, not merely replicate. Working on the web seemed to be a very new idea to many people who were at the conference and to some extent mirrors my experience of therapists and consultants who work psychoanalytically, many of whom have a sometimes neurotic attachment to being "in the room" and privilege this as the primary way of generating the transference. (As an interesting aside, of the 14 people who attended this workshop only 2 of us were women...I'm not sure what that means but the gender imbalance was more pronounced here than at any other event I attended).
Some of the thoughts that occurred to me about this..
1. The web doesn't exist - it is a wonderful manifestation of the collective unconscious - everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
2. The web is a boundary less space and many of the conversations (particularly in the wake of the Kathy Sierra incident) about placing boundaries on it have resulted in strong reaction and an acknowledgement that formal rules simply won’t work in this space which means it’s ripe for persescutory experiences and a regression to primitive drives.
3. The only thing that stops any of us committing an “offence” online is our own conscience or sense of what is right and wrong. So our internalised boundaries and how those boundaries are negotiated and made meaning of, are of primary importance in this space.
4. The absence of the social clues that assist us make meaning of, and interpret, relationships offline are absent online so this heightens the transference and counter-transference in a way that can be persecutory. This is why I’m mystified as to how a group relations conference that doesn’t address the territory can operate with integrity in this space.
5. When a conference finishes we have our experiences of the people who attended and how we entered into relationship. When contact online ends we have that, minus the physical presence of people but we also have the written correspondence. What happens to the text afterwards? And how are boundaries around text negotiated? We all know that once something is out there in cyberspace it is never coming back so the archiving function of the web is something that has to be looked at?
I'd love to hear from any psychodynamically informed practitioners working online about their own experiences of this area..
Is Katharine Hepburn the ideal board member?
I frequently work with boards of directors and management committees wanting to take time out to review where they are and where they are going. Sometimes this involves organising and facilitating "retreats" or "away days". A recurring theme is often that of board composition - Who do we need? What skill base are we looking for? Do we need to think of retiring and asking others to step in etc? When it gets down to thinking about real people groups can often get stuck. Loyalties, allegiances, politics and favouritism sometimes get in the way of the task at hand.
Increasingly I'm using other methodologies for getting at what's needed and a favourite technique of mine is the fantasy board game. In this, each person picks a person - real or imagined, alive or dead to place on the board. It's a fun brainstorming session and the more it is played the wilder the suggestions get (and you can tell a lot about the group by whom they suggest). It's easier to pick a fantasy person than name someone you might know in a personal capacity because it removes the emotional awkwardness and allegiance difficulties. I then do an exercise with people about why they picked the person they did - and the list of attributes and qualities simply flows! We then have a list of all of the skills and qualities needed to populate the board that will look to the future and it's not a difficult task at this point to compare that list with the skill base of people currently sitting on the board. Augmenting, changing or moving around tends to be a much more l"ogical" task once the "illogical" one of picking fantasy people has been completed.
There's a lot to be said for playfullness in consulting - I really enjoy these sessions, and for what it's worth Katharine Hepburn is always on my list. Why? She's independent, sassy, not afraid to call it as she sees it and can stand up to Humphrey Bogart in a boat while at the time being a four time Academy Award winner and remaining fabulously feminine. Now I wonder what that says about me eh?
Photo courtesy of rest-in-peace.info
and thanks to Anecdote for the archives picture idea
The Paradox of Choice
I like this video of Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice at the TED conference talking through his thesis that too much choice results in too much misery. I'll write more about this at a later stage, particularly as it relates to my own research but for now, from the TED site:
Psychologist Barry Schwartz takes aim at a central belief of western societies: that freedom of choice leads to personal happiness. In Schwartz's estimation, all that choice is making us miserable. We set unreasonably high expectations, question our choices before we even make them, and blame our failures entirely on ourselves. His relatable examples, from consumer products (jeans, TVs, salad dressings) to lifestyle choices (where to live, what job to take, whom and when to marry), underscore this central point: Too many choices undermine happiness.
The Cyber System in the Mind
I'm on the way to New York where I will be for the 10 days or so and am looking forward to another visit to my favourite city. I'll also be attending the New York regional meeting of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations where I'll be presenting on the 'cyber system in the mind'. I'm going to do a swift overview of social media; reflect on some of the issues presenting in my therapy and consulting practice arising from internet activity; offer a case study and some some hypotheses about the scarcity of psychodynamic practitioners online. (So far I have only come across one other - Irish man- Mark Dowds who is based in Canada these days). I'll post some of my thinking here after the event along with links to the sites I'll be referencing in the presentation and some other resources. I'm hoping to catch up with Terrence Seamon for a cup of coffee during my stay and if anyone else out there is interested in getting in touch please do drop me an email.
Cyber System in the Mind part 2
At the New York Regional Meeting of ISPSO on Saturday I shared some thoughts on the Cyber System in the Mind. I'm intrigued as to why there are so few psychodynamic practitioners (particularly those working with organisations) using social media applications to talk about the work. I shared my own experience of being invited to present on this topic (a relatively new one for this organisation) and the levels of anxiety it raised for me. At one stage it looked like the Aer Lingus pilots in Ireland were going to strike and there was a part of me that was almost relieved to have a legitimate excuse to cancel. If I'm honest, I was scared of being attacked, criticised and ridiculed - thinking through my emotional reaction to the invitation (and some subsequent email correspondence) I realised that I was having a similar emotional experience to many of the clients with whom I work. In some cases their fear of an attack on their expertise or artform area etc prevents them from sharing what they know in cyberspace. Sometimes it's easier and safer to talk to ourselves. But while talking to ourselves has its benefits it is also exclusive...I remember the loneliness and isolation of being out for dinner with friends after a week of working with therapy clients and knowing I couldn't share what happened to me in the office that week. I've learned to trust my emotional reaction to situations because it's the only thing I have when I'm working with a client. So thinking through all of the above led me to offer three hypotheses and a paradox to my colleagues yesterday:
There is anxiety about succession in psychoanalysis - the new replacing the old
The cyber system in the mind is not a virtual but a hyper-real place – a place of regression - where incestuous desire is potentially realisable.
The silence of psychoanalytic practitioners in cyber space is a defence against the potential murder/death of psychoanalysis from the oedipal attack of the new.
The paradox this raises is then
Creating & telling stories in cyberspace places us on an equal footing with everyone else – we become ‘ordinary’ potentially divested of authority and status – it’s easier to talk to ourselves
yet
The future of a psychoanalytic approach to organising and organisations may rest in how ‘ordinary’ it becomes
Here is the set of slides I used (minus the case study which was only relevant for members of ISPSO).
I've put up a page containing links to all of the sites I referenced and have also included a few more for background information - you can access that page by clicking HERE.
I couldn't find an appropriate place for Rives on the day but somehow he seems so relevant in hindsight!
Meaning and Motivation at Work ISPSO 2008
The annual meeting of ISPSO takes place in Philadelphia between 20 and 22 June this year. The title of this conference is Meaning and Motivation at work. If you are interested in how organisations 'really work'; and are curious about how emotion and unconscious processes influence how and what gets done then this gathering of consultants, managers and academics is the place to be. Before the main part of the proceedings there are four days of professional development workshops (16 - 19 June) open to anyone to attend. The questions being covered this year include:
How does one effectively market psychoanalytic work? How does photography introduce new power into understanding organizations? When consulting or coaching assignments involve working through impasse, what methods can encourage transformation? What can organizations do to build resistance to corruption in their work?
There are any more fascinating topics - so if you are in the Philadelphia area and are curious about a psychoanalytic approach to working and organising check out the full schedule here.
There's more information about ISPSO here and the full conference schedule is available here.
thinking out loud about disappointment
I spent a great evening at the White Institute last night where I shared some of my research on disappointment with a fantastic group of people who in turn, shared their experiences of disappointment in organisational settings. This was the first time I’d spoken about my work and I was very nervous and also very excited to see how my thinking would be received. As ever with psychodynamically informed practitioners, the conversations were rich, pregnant and enormously satisfying – I took away more than I contributed and I’m grateful to everyone who participated in the conversation for their generosity and indeed for the welcome I received.
Apart from the rich learning around my research topic I learned (again) that I speak too quickly when I am nervous and I really need to address this for future presentations. I get in my own way sometimes in my rush to get out of my own way (if that makes sense) and I’m much more comfortable in conversational spaces than I am in formal presentation ones – but perhaps that’s just another thing to think about and add to the mix. So thanks to everyone who contributed to my thinking and thanks to the White organisation programme for the invitation to share some of that thinking in such welcoming surroundings.